EP072 - LEAD FROM THE FRONT - RICK COOPER

Okay, so this is the whole Man Academy podcast, episode 72. My guest today is the big man, Rick Cooper. We're going to talk about leadership and performance. He's a coach, former rugby player, was a London firefighter. There's a lot of stories going to be there. We're talking about powerlifting as well. He can't dance, but he thinks he can. And he's also a dad. So we're going to talk about fatherhood and being a man. Rick, how are you and where are you, mate?

My man? Absolute pleasure to be invited on. Thank you so much. Really grateful to. Come on, I meet you for the first time. Just all good stuff that I've read about the whole man. And past guests also spoke to me about you. So I feel really humbled to come on. So thank you very much for having me.

Good. Oh, you ticked so many boxes. Of the kind of men we want to speak to who are about, you know, we'll say doing life better, whatever that means to you. And let's just jump into. You've got a really interesting story. It's so funny when I dig into the story of often the guys we interview, what they're doing now in life is often built from the experiences they've got before in the stories. So let's jump back many years to when you had a semi professional rugby career and you had an injury. Tell us a bit about that and what happened and what were the effects of it.

Yeah, mate. So you know what it is when we talk about injury, what people do now, you know what it is, is we have to see voids in our life and we look to fill them positively negatively. And I guess from my past. And then what happened was I basically dreamt to become a professional rugby player. Yeah, I remember getting laughed out of school. I mean, I'm 40 in two weeks. So we're going back sort of 26 years ago. I remember the careers interview and them saying, oh, like, what are you going to do, Rick? You leave school and rugby wasn't professional. I was like, I'm going to play rugby. And they were like, but really, Rick, what are you going to do? I'm like, I'm going to play rugby. That's it. So it was always like, you know, I got labeled with, that's funny. I said, it's my wife yesterday night. But she said all my school reports, if he was any more laid back, he'd fall over.

Yeah.

You know, stuff like that. But I went on and I did it. I went to left my normal School went to a boys school, which is rugby playing school in Essex called Campion. And I got signed up by Saracens in their first ever, the country's first ever rugby academy.

Right.

And I went there when I was 17. They asked me to play in the run to 21 squad. At that time he was only allowed in the 21s between 18 and 21. So I went in, I was before my 17th, it was January, January before June. So I was still 16 and it was like, oh my God, like these guys are men. You know, there's a big difference from 16 playing against like 18, 21 year olds. But I got there and I started just getting some pains. There was a lot of, lot of family trauma going on at the time, man, but you're playing rugby, there's a lot going on at home. I grew up in a semi violent home. My mum and dad would often like physically fight. It's quite traumatic amongst a lot of other stuff. But my back started to go a little bit during that time and the physios was like, you've got tight hamstrings, you've got tight hamstrings and a couple of points. There was like 50 acupuncture needles from my neck into my feet like three times a week trying to release this stuff and then it would go again. And yeah, one morning I woke up and I couldn't feel my legs and it was like, oh shit. So I found out the spine, there's a fracture through my spine and my L4 and L5 was so crushed that the surgeon said the juice in the disc, it was literally like a balloon about to burst with like a water balloon. So yeah, that's where we was at mate. And at the same time we found that out. We come from a broken home. Then some of my parents split up and we got, we got evicted from our home. So it was just all this trauma going on around like you lose this dream, you're this violent home you've grown up in. But at the time I didn't really think it was that bad. It was all just natural, you know. Yeah, you get into a punch up every Sunday and you know, like stuff like that. But there's a lot going on inside and you back breaks. All your dreams that you've dreamt of are gone. You leave school with like, you know, like free GCSes with no idea what the fuck you're going to do. You never give any idea to anything else. And you're made, yeah, you're made to believe as well. Like for the school system that you're not going to be a success in life, you're not going to get a job without these qualifications. So you have all these, sorry mate.

Just a load of crap that you get taught that and you're like, oh well, if you haven't got all the boxes ticked then you're going to amount to nothing.

Yeah, it's 100%. And you're like, you're conditioned to think like this. And then it's like, you know, I mean, I look back and I always talk to my clients about you're having a moving, you're either looking backwards and trying to try and not be something or you're moving forward to who you want to become. And I think it all starts from school. You're so fear mongered into thinking that you know all these things you need to be a success in life. And I generally do believe, I mean, even though our son goes to normal school, I still believe we're so socially conditioned to live in fear.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, 100%, I agree. But these, I mean everyone's got their own different views. I don't buy into what the majority, majority think and feel and I never have done. I've always been someone that I like to question, if you're going to put rules in place, why are they there? And as I've got older, my understanding is, is that people that rules put rules in place is because they fucking want something from you. So what is it they want from me that is scared of something? That they need to put these, this, what do you want to call it, these walls around me to stop me expressing myself?

Yeah, it's a, it's a big, big topic at the moment and you've probably come to the right place for that because I could talk about this for hours of.

I'm not sure that subject was on the list, mate.

I'll tell you what's funny on this. A while ago I interviewed someone who basically they said you've got to send through all the questions before you, before you interview. And I was like, as I said before, like, it's an hour's podcast. I can send you a rough idea but you know, you can go off on different tangents. So yeah, we're probably singing for the same hymn sheet on that one that, you know, there's a lot of unnecessary fear around being driven by professional psychological teams that I don't think is necessary. So yeah, I think we can agree on that one. So with you, with. Once you'd. Because when you had that dream of being the professional rugby player and then that gets taken away from you. I know when I was interviewing, I don't know if you're a football man as well, but I was interviewing Neil Mellor who used to play for Liverpool and when he'd had a professional career but it got cut short early and that is always so hard to take because as you say, you're like, well that's all I, that's all I was planning on. And if you haven't got the qualifications to go and do a normal job where you sit, you know, for, for 10 hours a day at a desk, like it can be really tough to try and readjust to that.

Yeah, it was, it was hard, mate. I just trying to go back to that time, it was like we'd just gone from a lovely house as well. Exactly the same within that few months into this like two three bedroom flat with my mum and sister and my dad had gone. And although he bought me a lot of trauma, you know, I have a lot of compassion for him now. Even though we haven't spoken for got a lot of years, you're going through this navigation process, you know, like who the fuck am I? You know, you're in this house now where two women live and they're just vehemently against men and everything that man stands for. Your dad's gone and there's not a lot of contact. He's living in whatever he was going through. And I used to go for walks and down Lee. I mean anyone knows Leon C in Essex. I used to go along there in the evenings, got pitch black, November, December and just contemplating life, you know, literally. There's some dark moments where I'm trying to figure out how I, how, how I can time, time it so when the tide's out, I can tie myself to the pier. Yeah, just enough times. When the tide comes in, I drown myself. Because it was dark, you know, it was really, really dark. I had no idea where I was going to go. I had no, there was not an ounce of light inside me. There was like, what am I going to do now? You know what lights me up, what excites me? Because even looking in hindsight, a lot of rugby was around fear. You know, I gave a podcast last month and someone said what to tell my 18 year old self. Ironically if I could talk to my 18 year old self, I'd have gone, go with your intuition. Because my intuition wanted to let go of rugby at 18, right. And, and it wanted me to go to Psychology, it interested the out of me. I loved it. But the pressure of everything around me, my dad, you know, I think I was 16 actually, not 18. 16. I wanted to study psychology. I really wanted to find a college. The only one I could go to is one in Southend. But it meant the rugby standard was shocking and I probably have to let it go. And it was like, oh, I better not let it go. So I was in fear of letting go of something I was good at, rather than thinking, you know, oh, wow, maybe if I went towards this with what my intuition is telling me over time, I'd be good at it. But I lived in fear of letting go of something because it was familiar. So, yeah, that time I was dark. And I remember going to career service and just feeling lost, useless, insignificant. You know, you're at an age where your mates are, like, earning money, going out of girls, and you're earning like, I just got his crappy office job, earning 600 quid a month, like, just feeling like shit and giving half that money to my mum to help out. I remember just sitting there and she said, oh, well, with your qualifications, you can either go police, army, navy, air force or firefighter. And. And I was like, oh, do you know what? I just don't really fancy any of them. But I remember just thinking, well, what else is there? Like, if this is all that's on offer to me, then I'm gonna have to take one of them. Yeah, I've got to pick one. Like, you know, as far as I was concerned, there was no other options in my life. I was like, so how old were.

You then at that point where you. When you made the decision? It's so funny with different guys who I've spoke to who kind of felt like, not because they felt like it, but other people said, this is the only path for you is, you know that. And you're like, oh, okay, thanks. I'll go with that then. And because, you know, it comes down to mentorship, maybe of having someone older than you who. Who isn't just trying to push in one direction, but to say, well, you can be anybody you want to be and you can do it, but, you know, at that age, most of us don't realize, but what was it like for you then, once you'd made that decision to become a firefighter? Because I always think I have such huge respect for people that are in the forces. And I've interviewed, you know, Royal Marine commando guys and James Elliott, military mental resilience coach, people that would put their Life on the line for things, you know, is very different to someone that just does a tough job, you know, that is long hours. So what was that like for you.

Actually doing the job? Do you know what it was? I applied through complete insecurity. I was triggered to fuck by an ex girlfriend. And after going through all that and not being in the gym and putting a bit of weight on a comfortably broken home and met a girl. You had a really lovely comfortable home and family. And I walked into a bedroom and she had calendars up, Firefighters everywhere. Oh my fucking God, mate. It triggered the shit out of me. I was just like, felt. I felt like ridiculed. I felt like insecure. I felt insignificant in this relationship. And it was like, right, she used to go to the gym and I never did. I was just in his comfort zone. And I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna go to gym. And I went back to gym three years after my back operation and was like driven by these calendars in my head. Just, I'm not gonna be insignificant. Fuck, she's looking at someone else. I'm like, all these thoughts and feelings of just like weakness is what it felt like, you know? And so that's what got me to apply. And I was just got to apply on insecurity and just fucking anger. Like I used to do stupid shit and like I'd go running and not stop to a passed out or was found in hospital or couldn't walk home and shit like that just to get into the fire service. Because in my head I'm like, it's a competition. What can I control to get in? It's the. It was like, what we now? So going back 15 years ago, 16 years ago, it was the most highly applied for job in the uk.

Right. Wow.

Yeah. So I was like, what can I control? And I was like, well, the only thing I control is how fit I can be.

Yeah.

So I went out of my way and I'd say things to myself like, yeah, there's no fucking other man that's gonna fucking beat me. Like, I'll bury everyone on that. On a bleak test. I'll fucking bury everyone on this. Because in my head I'm like, got these calendars and I'm like, fuck you, you're gonna look at me kind of thing. I wanted to feel relevant in the world. And I got in. And bizarrely, the underbelly though, man, is that I love being part of a team of men. I love it. So when I got in, it was like, yes. You know, you Think I remember feeling I finally got a pension, I finally got a job for life. But I remember having isolation around it, just like safety, because you're just told that this is all you're ever going to do.

Well, I just read you and that's interesting you wrote that because I wrote down what you put on one of your Instagram posts, which is you as excited to meet other men on my watch, build companionship and camaraderie and be part of something meaning meaningful and purposeful.

Yeah.

Just as you said. That's, like, what. That's one of the big things, I think, that so many of us have missed out on. Even, you know, when football hasn't been going or going to the pub or out with your mates and stuff. Like, a lot of that is the boxes that have been, you know, aren't being ticked because of. Everybody's been kept away from each other. So you. You summed it up nicely there.

Yeah. And I think, mate, as well as men, we are. It's such from a young age, brought up to compete, me and my wife are very, very conscious of. Of the language used now by the people we allow to be surrounded around our son.

Yeah.

You know, and I. I look back and I'm very. I'm. I mean, consider my pastime, man. I sincerely believe competition breeds disconnection. I don't mean disconnection from others. Competition breeds disconnection of your true authentic self because you're looking at someone else. You are. I mean, it drives me mad when I see people with sayings up saying, prove others wrong. Do what? Do what they said so that you couldn't. And I'm like, do you not see your motivate? You're a motivational speaker, you're a life coach, yet you're externalizing your motivation based.

On other people doing.

Yeah, and it drives me mad, mate, and it does, because I just want to help them.

I'm like, control what they're doing or how successful they are as well. As you said about the external part of it, you're worrying about something that you can't control.

Yeah. 100. And then people go, all right, then we'll make it. You be better than you were yesterday. It's the same message. Like, you're basically telling yourself for you to better than yesterday, you were never good enough. Which means that tomorrow you're already preempting a message in your CNS system that you're still not good enough. So just be. I will be the best me today. That's it. Forget Yesterday. Because if you were your best version yesterday, you're a different version today, so you can't compete with a person yesterday.

I love that, that labeling. It's so funny. You said this labeling of things is like the best being the best version of yourself or. One of the ones we talked about recently was when your partner gives birth. You know, when, when the female gives birth and the male is like, oh, you feel under pressure. It was the best day of my life. And I said on my zoom calls, I was like, it wasn't the most happiest day of my life. I was fucking shitting myself because it was a home birth and I was just worried that she. I was. It was the most anxious day of my life, but I wouldn't say it's the happiest. And also if he said that's the happiest, are you saying that never end again? You're going to be as happy as that day. So it's always interesting, like you said, when you start labeling, labeling, labeling yourself, labeling whether other people are doing better than you.

Yeah, 100%, mate. And I think that's what I felt when I got into fire brigade. I think with the camaraderie and you know, being part of something was all of a sudden there wasn't a competition. We were together, you know, like there was a cause it wasn't as if, you know, with rugby you're playing another team. So again, it's all about competition, it's all about winning. It's all about, you know, being, being better than someone else. Whereas this wasn't, it was like, how are we going to help people better? There's a big different meaning in that. You know, when you bring people together for a, like a co create model, like when you've got a joint purpose and you've got them energies, you want to come together for greater good. There's nothing more powerful in the world.

How powerful is it? Yeah, when you get the right people around you with the right energy. I mean, I spoke about this a lot, you know, either podcasts or zoom calls and the stuff I've gone on around the world with personal development. But you get the right amount of people who have got the right energy and it can totally transform what you can achieve and your self belief. Whereas when you're surrounded by people that are fucking mood hoovers, just like they suck the life out of you.

Yeah.

So how would you. At what point? I always have so many questions about. It's like when we interview guys that are in the say in the forces. Did you ever have any points where you actually feared for your life during, during the job? Because to study, obvious, it's most of it's a dangerous job.

Not really, to be honest. And like, you know, the military service is a bit different. You've got bullets shooting past your head. I guess, you know, you are going to be like that. It is that fight or flight. Like I'm either, I'm either living or I'm not at the end of this day kind of thing. But your fire brigade is mostly glammed up and you see the movies and you know, Americans are a bit more gung ho. We won't even get into that. But I just generally think that it's been sexualized, you know, like it's very, I think for a female and a feminine world, we sexualize it for women and we try to make you look more heroic than it is for men. Like I'm going to speak for me, but I've been in the middle of it generally. Like there's so many protocols in place and you're so trained to not be in situations. It is extremely rare. Extremely rare. Thank God as well. Touch wood. That you generally fear for your life in a situation.

Yeah, good.

You know.

Yeah, because I, I think, trying to think, which it was years ago I listened to a podcast of a fun, fun enough. A firefighter in the US Who'd said how, you know, you've only got to have one situation like that where you, you know, something goes wrong and you're caught in a burning building and it can kind of. We use the words trigger, but trigger. Suddenly you think, well, if I had died in that building, have I achieved what I want? Am I, you know, am I, am I living the life that I want to live? So it's always interesting to see how different people have kind of reacted to those situations. Well, then you went on to. This is why it's so cool with your story. Then you talk about powerlifting and representing Great Britain, etc. So tell us a bit about how you got into that now also, how tall are you?

Six foot.

Six foot. Okay. And, and obviously from your picture you can see you've, you've, you've got a lot of bulk on your muscles. So have you always been like that? I know you obviously had your injury, but then obviously going into powerlifting must been a huge part of that.

Yeah, I think naturally I'm quite lean. I used to be quite lean actually. And it seems to me now like, you know, things have changed a lot. The Last two or three years. But I went back to rugby again when I started the fire brigade after my broken back, after being told I'd never play again as well, I went back and broke everything else. So after like three, three or four years of playing again, I broke everything else and did a bit of bodybuilding, which that was when I kind of led me into really hitting the weights hard. So I become, you know, quite a bit of, you know, a bit of a beast then, but didn't feel it. It was such a weird world. Got that, did a bit crossfit a box and then I found powerlifting and it just came all of a sudden I had this thing where it was like, oh, this is me versus me, like no one else actually matters. And so you know, you do, you, you just do what you got to do to try and be as successful, as successful for yourself as possible. So yeah, we got into that and I got an invite to be to represent Great Britain and European World Championships with that. But things have changed and you know, we'd moved to Sussex and invites had come through and after all your life looking for trying to make it in a physical endeavor to the top level, these letters came through, come through this email, come through inviting me. And I felt nothing, like there was nothing in me. And my wife was like, oh, are you going to go to both or do you want to pick? Like one of them was in I think Slovakia and I can't remember where the other one was and and I was like, you know what, I just got no fire in my belly and we moved to Sussex. It wasn't there and that was a start of a lot of self inquiry because we moved to Brighton or Sussex and it was the darkest year. Like that first year was dark. Like I went and quit the fire brigade because I wanted to chase money, you know, like you don't make a lot. You've got a part time job, you do 50 hours a week as a firefighter. I was doing another 25 to 30 hours a week personal training on top of that. And it was just like we just had a little boy and it was just a case of someone offered me a job on the underground for pretty much triple my pay of what I was doing in both jobs. But it meant both of us because my missus was in fire service as well. And it meant both of us both us leaving. And we sold everything. So we were renting, we sold everything in the house and we moved down into family's house in Sussex with the pretense we'd go back after six months. So I drove into London for night work and did not get on with it. And did not get on with it. Atmosphere was horrible. It was this. It was just dog eat dog, you know, I wasn't used to it, the fire service, if something went wrong or you made a mistake. You cover each other's asses and you don't talk about it. You just know that someone's strengths, your weakness, and you help each other out. Well, we went on the underground and it was like. It felt like you were like, you were like this baby shark that cuts on you with great whites everywhere, just waiting to rip shreds out of you all the time. You know, people would grass each other up. You were the newbie, I knew the manager. So people never spoke to me for the first two months. They thought I was a spy. Like, you're brand new. And I'm like, I know nothing about the railway. So I'm like, I want to know. And I have no idea the language they're using. I have no idea about anything. And it was like, that's really tough, isn't it? Yeah. And you're like. And you know, you go through these emotions of blokes. Like you're in your mid-30s and you feel useless. Like, especially when it comes down to, like, a job like that. You've got to use your hands. I'm not the best in my hands, you know, like, I'm not, you know, like, I'm not a handyman. I'm not great with my hands. And you got this job, but you've got to know the names of tools, you've got how to use them. You've got be hands on with it all. So to me, you've all these inadequacy feelings come up again. You feel like a dick anyway because people are asking you for tools to hand them. You're thinking, oh, shit. Like, no. Yeah. No one's ever showed. My dad never had time for me to teach me this stuff. Like. So you go in now, like 35, whatever it is, 34. And you're like, oh, my fucking God. I just feel completely useless and like, just demand again.

Yeah.

And it was that time that I really contemplated taking my own life. I didn't sleep. I'd literally spend nearly 12 months just sleeping two or three hours a day. Just couldn't get off night work. And I remember driving home and I kept falling asleep at the wheel. Driving home. And you get yourself in such a place like this identity's gone from the person you knew in Essex, you built this body up, who's achieved all this stuff? You walk into any gym and people are like, oh, like it's Rick Cooper kind of thing. And then you move to Sussex. No fucker knows you, you, you like change jobs, you're not getting any sleep, you're a new dad, all your identities changed and it was like this absolute, like bomb was going off in my head and I wasn't thinking clearly and I just remember thinking like, Emma and Clay, like, he doesn't want to dad, he's. I'm no good to him, you know, like I'd. I'm not good to him. Like, what sort of man am I going to be? You know, like, he better without me. His mum's a strong woman, she'd be better off raising him without any kind of thing. What sort of husband am I to her right now? And I just remember distinctly wanting to drive into this tree on a bend quite near where we lived, where I could get a lot of pace up and just go through it and I went to do it and then I just remember this like energy right at the last minute, pull the steering wheel around the bend and it was like in the moments where you're like, fuck, it's not meant to be, it needs to be a change. And yeah, we had a change. And it went back, never back to that. And started to find this, this path, this self inquiry path of, okay, why didn't I want to go down this invite? Why did I not want to represent Great Britain? Where have I got to with this? What am I hiding? What's going on inside of me? Like, if I got out of my head, what's going on in my heart, who do I want to be? And it just went down this massive path, this last sort of like probably it's five, we moved six years ago, so it's five years of this deep self inquiry.

I'm just gonna say it's, you know, self inquiry, self reflection, you know, it's kind of looking in on yourself. And that's one of the big things we talk about at the whole man academy is to be honest, for most guys you just don't even bother to do that now. You know, if things are going brilliantly in your world and all the boxes tick, then I'm not saying you don't have to, but maybe you don't have. Not desperate for that, but it's. If you can start to push yourself on the path to, to where you want to be, you know, where do you want to go. What kind of hours do you want to work? Because it's been so interesting in the last, especially couple of years where I've done coaching with guys, where you have a guy that says, I hate my job, I want to go and do something else. And I'm like, okay, great. Do you actually know what that other career path entails? And one of them kind of hadn't thought about the fact that he said, oh, I want to be like a tennis coach, which sounds really glamorous and good fun. And I was like, all right, so you'd be basically working. You know, you might be working weekends. I. I don't want to work weekends. And you're like, okay, what about this? What about that? And it's so often that you hear guys that haven't ever thought, what do I actually want in life? And I know with the leadership coaching you do and the coaching in general, which we're going to get onto, but I saw you'd written something and said, I live a great life, a life I want and on my terms. And that's for us. One of the big things about it doesn't matter what the guy wants. Whether he thinks that it's all the shiny objects or he wants to live in a hut in the field, if it's on his terms and he's content and fulfilled, quite frankly, you're winning life. So I just wanted for you, when you're kind of doing coaching with people, where do you even start? I mean, let's say it's a guy you're coaching just to make it more fun for the 76% of listeners that are men.

I don't think it changes either sex. Graceland. I believe, and I believe eminently in this, that you have to. I always start off with values. You know, I ask a set of questions to try and find someone's values, you know, and what it is is more a case of we're asking questions. They enable them to see their values via the questions, but it's more process of elimination. So I have this like with. I know it's very fashionable at the moment, especially in the personal training world of, yeah, I'm different every personality. So I work a mindset. What you do? Oh, well, you know, I asked what their values are. What do you do then? Well, I ask them what they value. I don't fucking know what they value, because it's down to you to ask the questions, to bring these things out. So I always make sure that I generally believe that any foundation can Only build with operating from knowing what your innate drivers are. So you make decisions from all of them areas. So you know it's going to be things that you'll ask questions like, you know, if you went for your bank account, where's your money going each month? What is it you love having conversations about? Would you not act like having conversations about we look at your week, where's most your time spent and give me free answers. And we go through all them things, we get this process of elimination and it could be that they sit there and they realize their top five answers. So you collect the information and we go, okay, let's have a look, let's see, let's see which three to five topics sort of umbrella these things.

Yeah.

So all of a sudden you might have different answers, but the, the subject matter might be the same. So my top five values are family, coaching, my business, my self development, my health and wellness, my sick is nature. So all of my decisions for my life have to be based in all those things because that is what I value more than anything. The order can change, but generally in our lifetime, them same three, five, six things will stay the same.

Yeah.

And it's like anything. Like there's times in business is really, really good, which means that you can give more time to your family because that's ticking over. So all of a sudden families roll in, that rank goes to 1. There's other times where the business needs more attention. So for the business to be more attention, it might need, you need more self development. So for me self development goes to one. It means if the better I become, the better my coaching practice becomes. So there's where my time needs to go. So you know that will go into their family will slip down to free. You know, it might be that while I'm conscious all that I feel like about myself, I'm not, I'm not training as much. I mean like not as well. So then all of a sudden I'm like, oh, do you know what? This isn't optimal. So health and wellness needs to come up there, you know, and you go down this process. I believe we all need to start from there. Yeah, 100%. I also believe that there's a seven pillars of life. And I think these two things form a big foundation. The values allow you to make decisions in your personal and private life. So your personal professional life, you know, like because you get times where things come in in your way, you get overloaded by saying yes too much.

Yeah.

And we're quick to say yes. And, you know, I think I said this the other week in a post that Richard Branson said, always says, say yes, figure it out after. And I am a big fan of that. But I'm also conscious of you can say yes to too many things. Yeah, 100%. You get overwhelmed, you get frustrated, and all of a sudden you have to pull yourself back in and go, oh, hold on a minute. What are my values? Am I making decisions for my values or am I making decisions from scarcity? Am I making decisions from fear? Am I moving towards who I want to become? If I am, let me go back to my values again. Does this in line with me. Like, if someone said to me, Rick, here's 30 grand a month, you need you to come in for 15 hours a week into our office space and coach. Don't give a about the money. I'm going to say, no. My values are nature. My values are coaching with a nature element and embodiment work. That doesn't allow me to do that. The money's great. No, thanks.

It's so interesting because I always know there'd be people that might hear that, and if they haven't lived the life that you've lived. I saw it myself where I got asked sometimes, would I be interested going back to work in the city? And I was like. And I really meant there's, in a way, I was like, there's no money. You could pay me to go and sit at a desk doing what I didn't particularly find interesting for another for 200 hours a month. And then I was like, I guess there is a level. Because then I'd think if you could pay me. So I'd have to be paid so much money that I know I could only do it for a year or two and save all that money, then piss off. But exactly that, you just go, you know what? It doesn't come down to money. When you're, you know, you're trading time for money and it's not something that you're enjoying, then you're like, fucking hell, I can't do it.

And it's the other things as well. And, you know, like, I'm reading a great book and you've got. You've got boys. This book you've got to get. It's incredible. Raising Boys by Stephen Biddulph. Yes, it's brilliant. So it brings it down into, like naught to 6. 6 to 14. 14 upwards. I'm only about a third of the way through, but something I read was this 6 to 14 is when a boy longs for his father, he wants your attention. He's his first. It's his first time at six years old upwards where he starts to define what masculinity is. And he yearns for the male role model. He yearns for dad and he observes. He wants his attention. And I read this last night that there is significant scientific data that men who work at 12 hour day and aren't around the child has psychological issues in adult life around tendency to want to prove themselves in a sport.

Yeah.

Tendency to have become addicted to sex. More likely to be unfaithful or the other extreme will do anything to stay loyal. And people please a woman, they just create these imbalances and there's a lot of scientific data to back it up. And it says on there that thankfully we're coming into a time now where a lot of men are willing to do the work and realize that they'd rather work less or take a job for less money to be more present for their son than what it's always been for the last 50, 60 years of more hours, more things, but no real connection.

And I still believe so important. No, it's just because you brought us brilliantly onto the topic which I'd written down something you'd written about. Fatherhood is a special thing. Mum tells us how to be a man, but father shows us how to be a man. Dad being in the house sets the energy for a son. Absent dads also set the energy, absent father energy. Mothers cannot show a boy how to be a man. And I, I would always say maybe like yourself, the guys that I'm friends with who have had the most issues in life, pretty much all of them, it's because they haven't known their dad or their dad. They did know them. The dad was a total bastard, basically. And I never used to link that back until, you know, I started reading more about it and yeah, that thing of how important it is to have a. Have a dad around but also have a dad that is intent on spending time you're not just there but isn't present.

Yeah, it's. I get it. Like I've read like Fire in a Belly. I've read Backbone, all these, all these great books. And I get it. Like I get where we've come from. I get this, you know, this whole. Again, like I said, the start of the conversation. Men have a massive fear of the image of what needs to be needs. I mean, as in there's no need. What we are meant to believe that men need to do. Like, we need to be a supplier, we need to be a father. We. We need. We have to be the grafter. You know, we have all this image around it, like, because we are brought up to believe that this is what creates safety. This is what a man does. And I'd be guilty of it, you know, like, taking any job. I could run a fire service to bring money in and shit like that. Like that. That just degrade you. And I think my biggest thing, like, getting into coaching. Any coach you listen to this will appreciate this. You. You as well. And it comes point. There's a lot of pressure when there's, like, income not coming in. And it's like, what do I do? What do I do? Do I do? And you know what? Some people look. And I got brought up in a family like this. My mum's terrible for this. Well, I look to him and there's a time I've been like, it just take anything, just take anything to get the money in. Now I look, I'm like, no, right. What message do I send to him if I give up on my dreams, if I give up on what I believe and come away from my values? I teach him to do the same thing. There's no way I'm doing that. There's no way. And it's that faith that if you're passionate about something, there's something that interests you, that you want to venture into. It will fucking work because you're getting out of your head and you're in your heart. And if you believe in yourself because your heart's telling you it, how can you ever fail? You can't. Like, it's as simple as that. Like, you cannot fail because you'll do anything to make it work, because you love it. There's an intrinsic get up early, stay up late, 100, and it won't ever feel like that. You know, like Getting up at 5, won't feel like getting up at 5, staying up till midnight. Why stay up till midnight? Because you're in love with the process. You're in love with. Like, men want to build. I use this word, penetrate. Like, women always go, oh, tell me more, Rick, about men wanting to penetrate, thinking it's asexual, but it's not. We want to penetrate. We want to penetrate our career, we want to penetrate our status in a family. Like, we want to penetrate in life. And we, like, we become like we've had this metaphor, metaphysically speaking. We become like, we've had the fucking sniper because we try to Penetrate areas we feel no love for. We just try to penetrate in roles that we feel like we have to fulfill them when really we want to penetrate as fucking fathers, we want to penetrate meaningful things in our life. And if you've got that, that meaning, that deep intrinsic why you just can't fail, it might take a little while longer than the immediate effects of getting like cash in the door, so to speak.

Yeah.

But all you're doing is prolonging it, prolonging your meaning. All you're doing is kidding yourself that by you being busy and working, you know, like getting up and going to gym at six and getting on the laptop at half seven, finishing at six and then we use this great thing as men. Oh, I need to go to the gym to release. Well, what you're actually doing is treating. You're treating the symptom, not the source. So why are you spending more time away from the family home, away from the wife you've chosen to marry and spend a life creating, away from the kids you've chosen to have that you represent a really important role because you can't be bothered to self. Self reflect on yourself and say, hold on a minute, I'm spending 12 hours a day working and traveling and then I'm using the fact that this is so stressful, I need a release. Yeah, well, slow the fuck down and let's go to the source. And why are you unhappy? Where is this shadow come from that you feel like you need a job that requires you to work 10 hours a day? And let's look at that. I'm all into health and wellness, but we need to use the gym lovingly, not to release steam.

Yeah. Like a big mechanism.

100. Yeah. And I think sometimes we get lost in this world, like health and wellness mindsets. Like, yeah, the physical. I need a physical world. I've seen in Covid. Can't wait for gyms to be open because I know I'm going to feel better. No, you don't feel good because there's something else underlying. Like you're using the gym to busy yourself as a distraction from something.

Yeah.

And I'm not saying it's wrong or right. And I'm saying that it takes a. It takes a brave man of a lot of courage to want to sit down and do this work on himself. And like you said earlier, like, I'm a big believer in this. People go, oh, do you have to be a victim, Rick? Do I need to be broken down before this happens? No.

Yeah.

Like, no. Yeah, you just did that someone said to me the other weekend, when you've got a man in front of you, like in a consultation or a woman, how do you feel? And I'm like, when I've got a man, I literally want to get through the scream, punch him in the face a few times, shake him and be like, just wake the fuck up. Like, get over your ego. You're in so much denial because you think you need a problem. Like this feeling of just, oh, yeah, it's all right. You think that's good enough. And I want to slap him in the face and go, this is not good enough. You're not. You're not here very long. Like your son. You're a representation to your son, your wife, your daughter, your mum. Like, everyone around you. Like, fucking hell. Like, I want to slap them just so their eyes wake up. And women are totally opposite. They get. They're on the call and they're like, yeah, like, I want to do this. I'm energized, like, less blurry. I'm, you know, I want to be a part of this. I want more of myself. And it's just like, yeah, I just. You don't need a problem.

Yeah, well, that's. I tell you what you said there, which is. It's. It's interesting about what I saw was a lot of people use their backstory as their reason as to. And it might be, you know, why you're where you are now, but you're like, okay, but what's happened in the past doesn't matter. So you can piss and moan about that as much as you want, but, you know, we're starting from today, and what you do now is in control, but that's always the danger. A lot of people, and I see it with mental health as well. You know, we've said with the whole Man Academy, yes, we talk about mental health, but we also talk about fitness, fulfillment, business, entrepreneurship, fatherhood, sex, whatever, you know, whatever you want to talk about. And often with mental health, you're like, you know, sometimes you need to stop with the story that you're repeating about yourself all the time and start to look forward. But so many guys, I think, struggle with that one.

Yeah. Just because that whole thing, I know that, oh, it's the way I am. I've always been like this. It's like, shut the up. No, well, you.

You said also, I'll tell you what, it's an important one that I. I saw it and I was like, ah. You said, I don't watch tv. I read, I spend time and talk with my family and friends, occasionally watch a documentary or film on Netflix. And this is one of the things in the last. I did a talk, hell probably a year ago now with, with Johnny Nelson, the, the former. The boxer, and. And Ed Draper, who's my mate who works for Sky Sports. And we were asked about anxiety and someone had called in and said, you know, her son had some levels of anxiety. I said, one of the things I would suggest that could be a good start is turning off the telly, stop watching the news, don't read the newspapers, and you might start to, you know, if you. If you're not doing that, you might be reading or going out in nature. They were like, oh, that's interesting. So with yourself, you don't watch the tv. Is there. Was there a time when you said, right, it. I'm not watching it. Or has it always been something for you?

No, definitely a time. I was just like, I'm not watching it. I think it started about three years ago. Got into a bit of a spiritual journey. I don't know what happened, I don't know how. I honestly can't remember the pivotal point, but I know it all coincided with my body, where I wanted to let go of the gym and I went on a bit of a journey where I was like, I need to find out more about myself. I need to find out what the attachments are for me to this. This being. And I started working with a coach in South Africa and he done the same journey and he stripped everything back to just body weight, just calisthenic, just kettlebells, all this stuff. And I was like, I want to do it. And he was in South Africa, it was warm and he always worked outdoors in just a pair of shorts. So I was like, yeah, I think I just got introduced to. Yeah, mate, I know. I just got introduced to going to the cold water in the sea. And it started this whole process off, like, got myself in there, I realized about panic, about control the breathing to allow you to get out of your head into your body and all this other deep stuff. Like, we could talk for hours and. Yeah, but that was the venture of it. And then I was like this, you know what? I've got to rig up in my garden. No matter what the weather, I'm going to set the alarm for 5 o', clock, I'm going to get straight in the garden and I'm going to follow this training plan and see what it does for me. No music, silent. Just me and my Shorts, the weather conditions and I'll follow the plan. And I found out so much about what was coming up inside. There was this. Just this process going on over, like this three months of like, Jesus Christ, like, I'm more than I think I am. I didn't look at any mirrors, Eva, which is the first time, because in the gym you like, again, surrounded by it. Yeah, yeah. And there was no mirrors, there was no anything. And. And I found out a lot about myself. And then that piece just brought this. Hold on a minute. It was almost like add this awareness now that we're in this world that creates fear, competition, everything around us, mirrors in gyms, the news, the tv. And it was like at this epiphany of how much more life am I going to waste bringing information on someone else's agenda? So it was almost like, I've got windows of opportunity here everywhere. To read for half an hour, to study more, to learn more. Why am I watching tv? But why am I just sitting there going, oh, I want to chill out tonight? It was easy. It was almost like, well, do you know what, Rick? Just set a timer on your phone, read for 20 minutes, like it's no biggie. Journal, journal for 10 minutes, just see what comes up. Just put pen to paper and even if you don't feel like nothing's coming up, just write that. Like I do that recently. Oh, nothing's coming up today. Just sitting here trying to squiggle and before you know it, two and a half hours have gone. I've got five pages of journaling.

Nothing comes up.

Yeah. You know, and you just get into practices and I have to say. And like, I mean, we obviously sing from the same hymn sheet. It's been. I have not watched terrestrial telly for three and a half years. Yeah. And we watch your film and even like, Mrs. C's a bit worse than me. She'll pick out the odd crap film. Last night she's like picking a film swap number three. And I was like, this shit.

Yeah.

Yeah. And. But while she watched it, I'm doing my shadow work diploma at the moment. I just studied and it was fun. People got studying over nighttime. I spun the people and I was reading it. I was so engrossed in what I'm reading.

Yeah.

I finally put it down, about 10 minutes of the film to go. I just laid there, my eyes shut, just meditating.

Yeah.

And then went to bed.

That's so interesting, though, because it's. It's funny. And maybe me five years ago or three years ago, if you just said like, you're going to say throw your telly out, but like not watch telly, you'd be like, what are you talking about? But I just didn't realize and I've learned so much about the, you know, the brainwashing, the indoctrination and you see people when you turn tele on, it's like just mouth open and suddenly half an hour can go by. So we, I'm lucky, my partner and I basically had the same agreement where we were like, we still watch stuff on YouTube and stuff like that now and again, but we. I haven't watched anything on BBC1, on ITV, on Channel 4, basically for probably about seven or eight months now. Because people. It's just a load of shit, basically. And now we try. Now. I learned a lot about cryptocurrency. Em is a nutritionist, so she's always learning about the dangers of the shit people are putting in their bodies, especially at the moment, and the way we're running our life and about raising kids because we're going to homeschool our. Or not homeschool home, educate our child so we won't be sent into a government indoctrination camp. And. And you were just like, wow, there's so much to learn instead of just sitting and vegetating. But the average person is like, what do you mean? You don't watch telly?

Yeah, I know people don't get it out and then it's. It becomes. You can allow it to become a frustration, I think. But I do this with my clients and I coach a lot of coaches and we go through this process of the ideal client, obviously, like. And who you want to work with.

Yeah. Not just because they're paying you money, but who do you actually want to.

100, 100. Who do you want to work with? What energy do you want to bring and do you want to receive? And I think that process goes. When you speak to these people and you get frustrated because you're like, my hour like this. I've gained so many qualifications in the last five years, it's ridiculous. Even the last 12 months, like, you can go and get diploma with a discount code. Do you know what I mean? For 30 quid.

Yeah.

I'm like, you can go, you can go and learn all the skills to become a life coach. Looking go and learn all the skills, become a nutritionist. You can learn all the skills, become like a shadow worker or an archetypal, you know, like Jungarian coach, whatever it is. And although the course says it's 230. You've only got to ask around to find a discount code. It's like 29.99.

Yeah.

And, and you learn at your own pace. And if you're buying a course, well, hopefully you're buying a course because you're interested in it, which makes it not a chore, you know. And yeah, I agree that people don't get it and they don't want to tell you. I'm like, mate, I canceled my TV license two years ago. Yeah. You know, you don't need it.

Oh, it's, it's, it sure is an interesting one. I, I have a feeling there's going to be a lot more people canceling their TV license soon. I know. Last weekend there was a massive demonstration outside the BBC and there was a. About 30,000 people out there. So clearly they're not happy about something that they're doing. But that's another podcast. Well, last question for you is about. I know we'd, I'd be looking through your Instagram stuff and you'd written something about the 5am Club and I'm very much fun. I'm literally doing a talk next week to one of the really big banks all about morning routine because I love talking about it and how important it is. But one of the things you said, which I totally agree with was like, you got to be adaptable and be flexible because if you're so rigid on I must do this, this, this, guess what? When you got kids and they wake you up in the night or you wake up, have to get up super early. So what has the morning routine been like for you in the last, especially in the last few years where you're probably, you're learning more about yourself.

Yeah. Do you know what, and if whatever happens, mate, you make a fucking brilliant private detective. Do you know what, mate? As soon as you said it the first you said it afterwards, the first thing that came my head and you said that was, was, oh God. Rigid. I've gone from being very rigid with that to understanding a lot more about self compassion and self love that rather than being this manly warrior rapture taken like these my boundaries. Fuck off, this is my time. A lot of that's come from a lot of shadow around myself. I'm a lot more flexible now. I naturally wake up at about 5 and I've become more self aware of what works for me. So I do need that first hour generally kind of to myself. So I like get the dog out straight away. I come downstairs now and I'VE changed the routine. So straight away I come downstairs no matter what the weather, I put the hose on, I get straight under the hose for a shower in the garden.

Good effort.

Yeah. Straight away it's first thing I do now rather than leave it and it feels amazing. I've gone through like this, I've got into. I don't know if you've heard of it but Ayurveda, Ayurveda way of living. Yeah. So they talk about the minute you wake up, cleaning the eyes, cleaning, flushing the nose. So now I was getting under the hose and it's like all over. Scrape up the nose, all from. Flood my eyes with it, have a wash, get my clothes back on and I take the dog out and I just slowly walk, give myself that space, get my thoughts come back, everyone's up and I do a bit of yoga. Like 10 minutes to half an hour of some yoga and I've been way more flexible. If you haven't read Backbone, the guy talked in there about bringing yourself into massive self awareness of times a day. Your body feels like it's got energy to put itself for exertion and to start tailing and making your life in alignment and things and foods like start to become very constantly aware of rather than following what people tell you to eat. Like I'm not saying anything wrong with this but the vegan movement, the carnivore movement, like all these things start to understand what works for you as the individual and stop paying attention to what the world tells you. So write down, recall. How does food make you feel? What are you eating? What's the mood like? You know, get conscious of them, get conscious of, do you need to delay eating? Does it really need free meals a day or are you really energetic and happy or one, you know, vision to.

Have three meals a day, you know, Exactly.

And, and so for me it's just been shown a lot more, a lot more self love and self compassion. Getting away the rigidness and being like, hold on a minute. What allows me to feel, what allows me to feel happy and relaxed rather than forcing this routine in place. But I'm a, still I'm a big believer that that first hour, yeah, I do believe you need to have something in place that allows you to self care.

Yeah, we talk so much about it and again I talk to companies about it because you try and give people simple, achievable and memorable things that they can do as opposed to going right, you've got a 14 point plan and you're like fuck, I Can't remember what I was doing after point two or something like that. So we have like a four step plan that people literally can adapt to the them. But that's one of the big things I say about, especially if you have got like kids, you know, sometimes we've still got a little one that's waking up three times every, you know, every night and has done for 18 fucking months. So some. You go to bed with a full intention of tomorrow I'm going to get up, I'm gonna, I feel good, I'm gonna hit the gym, I'm gonna do this, do that or go for a run or something. And then you get woken up three times in the night and you know then when your alarm goes off you wake up and you're like fuck, hell, I don't even know what like which foot's which foot. I don't know where I'm going. So you know, not beating yourself up over that is, is one of the big things. But I, I sense with us that we've got another podcast in us at some point to be honest. But I know we said we'll, we'll call it a day at midday for you to let you carry on with your world and probably the chickens have escaped again by now. But, but I appreciate all your, all your time. I do sense, I mean literally we could go on talking about, about so many different parts. So maybe if you, if you're up for it at some point in the future we'll, we'll come on and do round two, maybe even in person, you know.

Oh, I'd love to. Absolutely love to. Yeah.

I was thinking maybe we get you and your wingman Aaron on at the same time, which would be even more interesting. But.

Yeah.

What's your plan for rest of today?

I'm actually been invited onto an Instagram live with the female method to talk about male perspective during the. Yeah. During the cyclical period. So got that on. Got a couple of, couple of clients on coaching sessions and then I've got something else. I can't remember what it is for the life of me. Oh, I've just been offered, I've been asked to lead the leadership team for a coaching company. So yeah. And they've just asked me to write up what my vision is for it. So just going to give some time to that as well.

Sounds good to me. And this is what for people listening, this is what I like is it's, it's. You're listening to a guy that's living life with a Bit of an adventure. It's not. I'm sitting at my desk doing a mundane thing that I don't like because you're like that. All you know, it will, it will drip and drip and drip away until one day you'll be like, fuck this, I can't do this any longer.

Do you know what, it's funny you say that. I know we're about to go, so I've gone, okay.

But I'm just making sure that we're roughly on time.

We can squeeze in over five minutes. It's funny you say that because what I've done is I've. Out of nowhere somebody, a corporate, someone corporate I know phoned me and said, do you do team building days? I hadn't. It's one of them times. I said, yeah, fuck it. I say yes, I'll figure out after. So I said yes. And I've run quite a unique one to one coaching day and I looked at it and I was like, hold on a minute. I googled team building and all these events in the uk, the corporate go to and I was thinking, oh my wow. Oh my wow. Where the hell that came from? Oh my God. I was like, I can take the one, I'll take the one to one model and I'll bring that into a corporate team building day. And it's very unique. I can't find anyone else that does it, but it's a lot of embodiment work and going within for the day as well as team building around communication around teamwork, around relationship building, rapport, all this stuff. But there's a lot of embodiment work involved that they never normally do. And you just saying that about the mundane. What I've tried to do is create a day that rather than go, oh, we're going to a team building day, we're going to play a bit of rounders around the pitch. We're going to get some military guy who's going to beat us for a day and you know, then we're going to have a, you know, a couple of beers after I've tried to completely change it up. And what, and just sit there and think, okay, what can these people come from their mundane to have a completely different experience.

Yeah.

So yeah, you just saying that? It was just saying I feel really passionate about. I've just started creating now.

I think that's important also that companies, companies are starting to get back into having events for their staff. And in this last year, you know, prior to the initial, the lockdown, number one of like 25 or whatever it is now. But you know I'd spoken at banks and different places places and at festivals and then a lot of companies kind of were so confused about what was going on they stopped doing that. But it's important that they start looking after their staff and giving them thought provoking content because sometimes it can, I know, spark something interesting in people and a bit of motivation as well and leadership and team building. That's why I was like man, we can do another entire podcast to be honest.

Oh yeah, love to.

Well I'll let you go but I appreciate all your time and all the work you do helping people say helping people to do life better. And also thanks to Mr. Aaron Clark for introducing us the man with the wonderful beard. So we appreciate that brother and hopefully we will speak to you soon.

Definitely. Cheers. It's been an absolute pleasure mate, thank you.