EP073 - UPPING YOUR ELVIS - CHRIS BAREZ-BROWN

Okay, so this is the whole Man Academy podcast, episode 73. My guest, I'm pleased to say today, is Chris Burries Brown. Let's list author, speaker of some of the great books up in your Elvis. We're going to talk about all different things today. You'd be surprised what, after reading his books, all these little questions and thoughts that come up. But firstly, Chris, how. How have you been through kind of lockdown? Because, I mean, I forget how many bloody lockdowns you've had now. It's like 408. But what was it like for you, you know, with your. Obviously I've watched you do different talks and having to adapt to it.

Yeah, well, you know, when we started out, I just had the biggest series of live events I've ever had in my life booked in all around the world. And of course that disappeared. It started in March and that's when lockdown happened. So all of that just vanished. And then we spent a bit of time just thinking about, well, you know, how do we use our time well, and at that time, wrote a book, launched a new tech business. We'll talk all about that. But I actually quite like the space. You know, we had great weather and, you know, I'm very lucky where I live, so that makes a big difference. And then, and then I think it took about four or five months for my clients to go, ah, we can actually do this digitally. And then since September, we've been absolutely flat out again. So business wise, you know, it's been an interesting journey, but actually the space has been really good for me because I've got to do things I wouldn't usually be able to do. So those, those first few months were great as far as life is concerned. You know, I'm the first one. My wife thinks I'm a hermit. Right. You know, I don't go out at the best of times, so it suits me perfectly. But actually, by now I am starting to crawl the wall slightly. So, yeah, even I'm saying I'd like to see some people. Yeah, I think it's time I was.

Going to ask because, you know, I mean, I've watched, you know, your TED talks, etc. And for me, the few talks that I've done, you feed off the energy of a crowd and also, you know, understanding whether they find it funny or that, you know, you need to change the way you're talking. I just wanted for you, because that must be one of the big things you're, you know, it's about energy and passion and about Making people think differently and then people are right, you're looking at a box and a camera and do it.

It's broadcast, it's like telly, isn't it? So you get nothing back. So, so I mean, a lot of the time we could get some sort of interaction if we do live stuff, but obviously in this world you do have to do some broadcast stuff where you have no idea at all. And actually I've just done a 12 week program where we got very little feedback until the end. So I've done three months of work and at the end they went, that was brilliant. And I'm going, well, it would have been lovely if I'd have known that. Because you're kind of guessing of it, aren't you? So that's tough. That is tough. That's a different world I'm learning to adapt to.

Yeah, no, I'm hoping that they say it's all very well doing talks because as we know, it opens things up. You can, you know, you can connect with people across the world and they don't have to travel. But being in the same room, you know, is priceless to me. And I wanted to get onto. Well, firstly, the reason I first heard about you was someone suggested reading Wake up, your book, Escaping a Life on Autopilot. And a lot of that comes from, with the whole man academy. You know, we set this up in 2018 to help men do life better, encourage them to get together to talk, but also to look at your health, your fitness, you know, your mindset, all the different things that make up a man. And we kept finding that guys similarly said they felt like they were sleepwalking through life. Especially those, primarily the guys between 34 and 45 who are professional, maybe have got kids and have got a desk job and they're just feeling like they're, yeah, sleepwalking. So I just wondered, like with that book, I mean, we're going to go on to upper Elvis, but with Wake up, you know, what was it like writing that? And where do you get all your ideas from?

Well, I get all my ideas from the experiences that we have. Right. So I'm not one of these kind of intellectuals who do lots of research and I'm certainly not academic, so that's not my thing. But I've worked for 20 odd years helping some of the biggest and best companies get better at what they do. And by doing that a lot you just start to pick things up about what drives people, what makes them tick, what makes them extraordinary, what makes them find tougher days versus great ones. One of the things I just noticed is that we're just these creatures of habit, aren't we? And I asked my clients, I said, so, how's this week been? And they go, I have no idea. Because literally they're banging from one meeting to the next. It all becomes a bit Groundhog Day. And I know that for me to feel alive, I need to check up my energy. And one of the best ways of doing that is to get off of autopilot and become more conscious. So it's purely through touch and feel, touch and feel. And then when you start to scratch the surface a little bit, you understand how many people suffer from this kind of, as you say, almost sleep walking through life. And I think it's a terrible waste of what is an amazing opportunity to be on this planet. So that's why I wrote that one. How did I find writing it? Well, my writing process is probably a little bit different to most, Anthony. So the first book I wrote, I just went and locked myself in a cottage up in Blakeney in Norfolk and wrote it in five days. And since then, I've done the same principle. I work out what the kind of structure is and the synopsis, and I sell the kind of book proposal and I do a lot of research, but I actually write. It's never taken me more than seven days to write it. And the reason being is if I were to sit down and do an hour a day, it would be rubbish, truth be told, because that's just not the way I think. I think a lot of us, we like to have depth of focus for the right stuff, and we need to create that in our lives. And therefore I get up very early, I write very, very hard for as long as I can, and then I go off and walk the dog and muck about the rest of the day, come back to the next day. And then actually, when I did wake up, when I did Shine, I did, what, 38,000 words in six days doing it that way. And I know if I'd have done a little bit every day, five years later, I wouldn't have finished. So that's my process.

It's always interesting when you talk to different guys that have written books, and some of them, you know, always say you have the ebbs and flows of focus, and it's very hard to say, you have one hour, you're going to write a book now, and you're like, you know, your energy's up, your energy's down. So it's. That's Why? I love asking the guys who've written and not just books. But, you know, I loved. I love wake up and that's why I was so interested to read up in your Elvis with going on autopilot. How do you kind of stay. What's the word? Kind of motivated and energized yourself. Is it through just morning routine as well as everything else or the people around you?

Oh, all of those things. So, look, morning routine is a game changer for me, so that makes a huge difference. One of the things that we did to get into that book was we did two years worth of energy experiments, actually two and a half, where we got some of the world's experts to coach us in how they get their energy right. And we did different things for a month. Right. And we did all sorts of stuff. But one of the things that we did was we did the whole Wim Hof Iceman stuff. The cold water immersion. Yeah, I'm such a fan of that. I've gone nuts on it. So I built a pond. I'm in it every morning. And in the summer when it's too warm, I've got a refrigerated tub. You know, that's how much I love it. Which is a bit too much, I think, Anthony.

That's good.

But as part of my routine, that's what I do in the morning to make sure that I am alive, connected to who I am and the world in which we're living and indeed what I want to do that day. So that is massive for me. But you just mentioned people. Relational energy is massive, isn't it? I mean, who you surround yourself with is who you become. I totally believe that. And, you know, I like to hang out with, you know, the freaks and the weirdos, the creatives, the energetic, the ones who are positive as well. I find the older I become, the less tolerance I have for negativity, truth be told, because there are those people that can see opportunity and make stuff happen, and there are those that moan about it. And I know it's the former I want to play with. So I. I'm very deliberate about that.

Yeah, that's trying to think. There's. A couple of podcasts ago, we were talking to a chap about, in a similar, you know, kind of the average of the five people you hang around with. And I said, in life, I learned to slowly, because it's not easy, but slowly, like, delete the people that are the mood hoover. Realize every time you have a conversation, you start with the weather's Crap and this. And something's happened. You like, look, you know, we will say it's fine to discussing, but you like, you know, in short burst, as opposed to it being. If you're spending all your time with someone.

Yeah, yeah. There's a load of science on negativity, right. And what we know is if you have a negative friend, you are 100% more likely to be negative yourself. It just rubs off on you and you'll die younger, you have heart disease. There's nothing good to be said for negativity unless you work for an insurance company and you're a risk assessor. That's about it, really. Or you're about to jump off a cliff. Then it's useful to be negative. But apart from that, I, I can't think of one reason to do it. And yet it's so prevalent. We're designed to be negative, so I get that, but we can do something about it. So I like the folk that have. I like the folks that say, yeah, come on, let's do it now. Because it makes such a difference to the way everyone shows up. Right?

Yeah. Having that chap I've recently had written a short book called yes, you can. And if you spent half your life just saying to people whatever it is they were trying to achieve, yes, you can, as opposed to, yeah, but, you know, your family don't like it, you haven't got too much money, all the different things. And as you were saying, I was just thinking there's one other industry at the moment that could do with losing their negative, which be the mainstream media, you know, with the fear porn, as I. Because you just.

Fear porn. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And the problem is. So, you know, they're very aware of our psychology, right? So our brain latches onto negativity like. Like Velcro, but, you know, positivity, like Teflon. And the reason being is that, you know, part of our survival mechanism is to see potential danger. Therefore we get overexcited about anything negative. And guess what? That's every news feed, isn't it? I mean, you know, has there been any good news in the last 18 months, Anthony? I don't know.

I mean, it's well hidden. If there has been any.

I haven't seen any of it. I mean, you know, we've got Covid, we've got, you know, politics, we've got wars everywhere, we've got famines, we've got climate change. Everything is a disaster. And if that's not A disaster. Some chat show host has just created some more disasters, if anyone cares. But, you know, we just don't see anything good, do we? It's not.

And that's the same, isn't it? If it bleeds, it leads. And that's why I'm a big believer in. For the last kind of eight months, I just don't, I don't read newspapers anymore, I don't watch normal TV anymore. And you know, I'm noticing the more and more people I get around that are when I, for me, I call successful being, you know, living a life of impact and freedom and kind of doing what they love. So many of them say, I don't, I don't read the newspapers or I dip in and out, but I leave it all alone. And I was like, wish someone had told me that about 20 years ago.

Oh yeah. I'm like, I mean, I get the week and I scan that and that's, that's my news. Just so I know what's going on. I think we have to know what's going on. Yeah, but, you know, that's what I do. And you know, I do feel very sorry. I know a lot of people who do this. You've got a newsfeed on constantly in the background and I think it has a very oppressive, you know, impact on your life. The other thing is that you just don't want to believe anyway, so what, you know, I remember years ago I read, I read a front page news report about, you know, a presidential meeting in London. I flew over to New York, read exactly the same report, completely opposite story, and you just go, well, so we're filling our head full of negativity, of, oh, and half it isn't even believable. So it's, you know, what is the point? What is the point? Let's create our own news. That's what I say, and make it some happy stuff.

That's it. And that's the thing I now, you know, I encourage people to fill their time if they need to fill it with, you know, reading the upping your Elvis books wake up and you know, or podcasts and things that are, you know, inspiring and kind of, you know, just, it's thought provoking content. Let's talk about upping your Elvis. And I wrote down, so I didn't, I didn't try to remember it and completely butcher it, but you know, helping you understand what makes you tick, liberating you from the restrictive systems of traditional business and opening your eyes to a new way of working and living, which I thought was great. So tell us for those. I'm so lucky. I've read it in the last two days and my partner's like, are you going to put that down? I was. I'm just rereading it again just a little bit. But tell us a little bit about, for you, what was the kind of motivation behind writing it?

Well, so, I mean, well, the first off, the name Upper Elvis, you know, it's inspired by Bono. He used to ask a great question, which is, who's Elvis around here? And I love that because I think everyone needs a bit more Elvis in their lives and we can all bring a bit more to play. So that's why it's up in your Elvis. And then the reason for the book is that quite simply, we're not designed for business. We're just not. We're designed to be hunter gatherers. We spent 2 million years on this planet as that up until 12,000 years ago. And actually, if you think about how we've developed, we haven't really changed a great deal over 50,000 years as far as our kind of mental faculty is concerned. So we're designed for that life. Business is a very recent design and it's changing incredibly quickly and we cannot keep up. I think one of the problems is that we try and make ourselves fit business. And I think that's just a terrible mistake because as I said, we are ancient. What we should do is make business fit us.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm deeply passionate about. But you can't do that unless you understand what makes you tick and what your design is. So that was the inspiration for the book because my foundation on this is, you know, it's all about energy. If you get your energy right, work is easy and fun. If you don't, it's a horrible nightmare. So, you know, let's get that energy working better for us. And to do that, we need to know where we've come from.

Yeah. And I know you. There was so much of the book. I actually went out to my partner because she's a nutritionist. So she's very much, you know, about the getting back to the natural things we used to do many, many years ago, like what we're eating and how we're sleeping and all the different things. And I was like. What I said to her was, I think that reading that book would make you a better leader as well in your. If it's someone. A guy in the office space. And I was trying to go back to when I worked in the city. I was, you know, working on a broking or trading floor with 300, pretty much all other guys and there for 200 hours a month sitting at your desk. And I used to fall asleep in the afternoons. And it was funny because I would say to people, why shouldn't you have a little nap when your energy's low if nothing's going on? Because then 10 later I'm kind of energized and ready to go again. Whereas if you sit there and we've all done it, we just slowly and then you reach for another coffee. I think that's one of those big things. And one of the things you said was about the way we eat today is killing us. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that and your thoughts on it.

That's just a travesty, isn't it? I mean, if you look at what people consume on a daily basis, it's junk. It really is junk. I understand why we've got a lot of mouths to feed on this planet and actually people don't have enough money and therefore what we do is we go for the lowest kind of investment in pounds for calories. As long as it's got some taste behind it, people are happy. But it's just a very, very naive way of feeding people because obviously the impacts on health are just terrible. I love what Boy George said, which is, you know, if it's got a name, don't eat it, you know, and I tend to believe in that. It's, you know, again, and I understand we can't all do this, so I'm talking from a very privileged point of view. I'm also going for the ideal, right? So there are people who obviously can't feed themselves by getting locally sourced stuff. And I completely get that. And you've got to do what you've got to do. But. But if you get choice and the vast majority of people in this country have choice, then you've got to get locally sourced seasonal ingredients, you've got to cook it yourself. Ready made stuff is rubbish and you've got to learn how to make sure that you get the right kind of balance of that. And I think that a lot of us are just so time poor, we don't care. We just get our calories from anywhere and it's having an impact.

Yeah, and Joe, it's so important because there's so many different points to this, but the way I look at it now is also we've been conditioned to be, you know, we Won't wait for anything at all. Everything gets delivered to our door. And the food, if our food's five minutes late, then people will complain. And I was thinking that goes back to now. You know, like you said, people are time poor. And if they are time poor, then you've got to ask the question of, like, why? Is it because they're working too much or they're spending too much time scrolling on their phone? I wonder, how do you navigate with yourself, family, staff, about trying to get the balance between being productive and I say being busy, being productive and getting everything done and actually finding that space yourself to kind of just sometimes do nothing or just have fun?

Yeah, And I suffer, okay? So I'm itchy. I'm one of these people that has to do things all the time. And in fact, my kids actually said, do you know what, dad? It's not much fun having a weekend with you because we can't relax. I'll be like, I'll go mother lawn. Or I'll go do that. You know, I like to do things, but they're not all worky things. They're quite restful things. But, you know, I am. I tend to be. I don't sit down a lot. That's the truth. However, what I am very aware of is that we. We often waste our time. So there's some amazing research around focus and how you use it better. And the research suggests that the best performers in any walk of life spend between three and a half and four hours a day working. When you read that, you go, well, how does that work? Well, it's simple. They do it with total commitment and focus, and they don't get distracted by stuff. And actually, I don't know many people who managed to do that. So I got into practicing and I found that actually I have a sweet spot in the morning. That's where my deep focus tends to lie. And I make sure I crack through the most important stuff then. And if you do that, then you can spend your afternoons doing other stuff like this, chatting to you, for example. So my energy in the afternoon is good for this type of stuff. But in the morning, that's all my thinking time, and that's what I have to protect. And I think most people don't have the awareness or the discipline to do that. And they also love the dopamine kick of scrolling through social feeds, which is just purely about, oh, look at this. It's like crack, isn't it? It really is. And when you start to understand that by playing a few Tunes on it. And actually one of our energy experiments was understanding how to manage digital. You start to understand what a time waste it is. And actually again, it's a bit like the news. It gives you nothing positive in your life. I mean, it really doesn't. You know, I understand that some people get a bit more of a connection to their friends they don't see because they live abroad. I get that benefit and I get when there's an earthquake, you can see if people are safe. I get that bit. But the rest of it's absolute bollocks, isn't it?

I wrote down the word notifications because that for me, you kind of just drop the word in because you realize if you think for your phone, I've got three different email addresses, you've got all the different things on there. You've got Telegram, you've got WhatsApp, you've got Facebook, Instagram, you've got Twitter. And even when you go on there to maybe reply to an email, if you haven't turned it all off, it's so clever. It just tickling you and you. Oh, fuck. Oh, I'll just have a look at this. And then five minutes later you go.

In the rabbit hole. I can't remember what is true. And you know, we, we obviously we turn off notifications some time ago because we realized that one of the, one of the other top tips I got was if you look at the stuff that really gets you into that mode, that gets you totally distracted. Stick on the back page.

Yes.

And I found, because you can kind of, you can get your screen reports and see how you've done. Stick on the back page. Stopped me about 80, 80% of the time. So. So my usage dropped 80% as a result of just moving it. So I couldn't see it. Simple.

But you know, there's a little golden nugget for people. Just move it a few pages over.

Exactly. Really helps. So, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, and look, I don't want to turn about time. Right. Because technology is amazing and I'm a big fan of it and actually it can solve some of the biggest problems we got on the planet. So I don't want to turn back time, but we just got to learn how to use it better.

Yeah.

Because actually our design is not for that. Right. And actually all those, those lovely, you know, Silicon Valley folk know exactly how we're programmed and that's why we find it so irresistible. Right.

Yeah, it's the thing where you get your, you know, you get Your screen time sent to you. And I know, you know, I use it for work as well as you might watch stuff, but I know it's weeks ago, I mean back, I think now, just after Christmas, where one of the days, it was like 4 hours, 12 minutes. And I was like, I wonder how much of that time was really actually, you know, doing something useful or productive. Not that you can't enjoy stuff on your phone, but you just think, wow, like those times you get caught down a little rabbit hole and it's, you know, oh, look, Liverpool have scored and let's check something out. That's why with your book, this is what I found important about upping your Elvis was it gives you lots of short, thoughtful ideas that are achievable. Because, you know, I've read some books that are quite deep and meaningful and. But you read them and then you've kind of. You can't remember what you've just read in the last paragraph, which you. There's. The old saying is, you know, you know, knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing. So if you've read it and you can't remember what it was, it's useless, to be honest. That was one of those things. And I know you'd said like, we're primed to think we're in danger on a daily or hourly basis and, you know, with our cortisol levels and everything kind of pumping through our veins. I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, about how it's affecting people.

Yeah. So this all goes down to the fact that we've got this negativity bias, right? So again, just, just the reason being is back when we were hunter gatherers, survival is our number one priority, right? So what we've learned to do is if we see a bush rustling in the distance, we don't go over to it and investigate. We get our spear, we get in our cave and go, ah, it's going to eat me. Right? So nine times out of ten it's Anthony coming back with some berries from a forage and yippee, we got breakfast. But the one time that it's a. It's a carnivorous beast. I'm delighted I acted in a negative way. And obviously when you do that, you have a fight flight freeze response, you're flooded with adrenaline and cortisol and we live to fight another day, right? So that's our design. Now, obviously we're not going to get chased down by beasties too often these days. So we, we've got the same programming, but we're not reacting to that. We're reacting to anything new. Anything new and different. It could be a new person, it could be a new idea, it could be Covid, it could be the news. Right. Anything new, we can't help but go, ah, it's going to eat me. Are we reacting that way? So most people are basically living with a constant stress response and obviously eventually over time that energetically just wears you down. So there's a lot of people at the moment who literally are running from one fear and danger to the next and that is their life. And it's almost impossible place to live because it's just not good for any part of your wellbeing.

You just said it. I guess it's energy sapping. And one of the things I'm seeing more of, especially in the last, the usage of zoom. I mean, zoom was around before lockdowns happened, but most people didn't really ever use it because they were face to face. But I'm seeing now and maybe you can talk a bit more about that, about people that are saying they're on, you know, zoom call after zoom call after zoom call, like seven or eight hours a day. And I'm like, I wonder what. Because you're not having any actual, you know, you and I aren't talking face to face. We're looking at a screen and roughly eye to eye. But I just wonder what the impact you think of. You know, that again, there's always benefits of it because you can talk to people and you know, you don't traveling. But that exhaustion I'm seeing of people that are kind of zoomed out, basically.

Yeah. Well, it's a different type of interaction, isn't it? I mean, when we're in a room, we tend to relax a little bit. We. We roll around each other's energy. Actually there's some payoff for being together.

Yeah.

Whereas on the screen it's clinical. And what I've noticed is people are just incredibly transactional. So they just crack on with the work and what they do because they don't have to go from meeting room to the next. They'll literally go till 11 o', clock, where the next one starts at 11 o'. Clock. And I had this. I was talking to one of my Nike clients, right. Who are all about movement and fitness. I said, how's it been in lockdown? I said, well, I'm on the screen from 7am till 9pm every day. And I'm going, you're what?

Great.

How can you do that. We're designed to move. Right. We can't actually process unless we move because guess what? As hunter gatherers, the food didn't come to us, we went to get it. So it's baked into our physiology. Right. When we move, everything works. Our minds work better, our emotions process better, we feel about who we are, we've got more connection to the world. We are designed for that. If you are static on a screen, you're just cutting that out. So you have to make it work better for you. And one of the things also that obviously we're missing with the screen time is that when we're in the office, we have just about 40ish interactions per week where we bump into somebody, get a coffee, we have a chat. And, you know, these informal interactions are important for creativity and insight, but they're incredibly important for relational energy. Right. And when we're on screen, that drops to about seven. Okay. So we've suddenly missed all that human connection about the stuff we would call life. Yeah. Rather than just the job, the work, the thing we have to deliver. So actually, whilst we're on screen, we're just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. There's no respite from it because it's all about objectives, deliverables, moving on, bang. And no one gets to kick back and just be themselves and actually soak up a bit of humanity. And that's tough. So all the clients I'm working with, the moment we say, well, how do we get that back? How do you get that into your day when you're on screen? And how do you make sure you're not on it all day long? Because that's the last thing you want to be doing. It's just not the way that we're built. There's this weird thing that goes on with us, which is we tend to think that an hour at 9am is the same as an hour at 4pm we see our time as equal increments of 60 minutes. My 9am is nothing like my 4pm it's nothing like it. You know, and to think that actually if I just segment it all, I can do equal things all through the day, it's just rubbish, isn't it? You know, what we've got to learn to do is instead of manage our time, we've got to manage our energy. And that's really what the book's all about.

Yeah. Again, I wish I'd have known a lot of this stuff many years ago, because not just for me, but again, the guys that you Saw working in the office, as you say you would often you couldn't, you had to start your desk because that was. If you're at a desk, you're making money. So you couldn't go out for lunch unless you went out with a client. So you know, there was the old story of a. Or generally of us guys. You'd be like, I'm going to pop out and grab a sandwich. Because you know, you've been in from 6:45 in the morning on phones and looking at lots of numbers on screens and it's taxing on your energy. And people say, but you're just sitting down and you're like, I'm thinking the whole time. And then you'd say, I need to go and get sandwich. And so I say, don't worry because the desk junior will go and get it for you. I need to get out. And like you say, you'd come back and you'd feel refreshed instead of eating at your desk and dropping some egg mayonnaise in your keyboard. So I'm always trying to say to.

People, if you have a lunch break for a reason, right? I mean, it's a chance for you to regenerate. You know, your lunch break is the equivalent of five and a half hours, five and a half weeks of holiday a year. Yeah. But people just work through it. But obviously if you have an extra five and a half weeks holiday, imagine what your energy would be like. It'd be amazing, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

And people just, you know, they flush it, they're just like, oh, it's not important and it's ridiculous. And I know that I've got loads of clients who, they've got offices in America, they've got offices in Asia and therefore the only time they can work together is at lunch. So therefore it's a prime time. I get that. But then take your break on either side of it, you still need it because otherwise you, you're just going to be flagging.

And that's, you know, the flagging. I always think it comes down to, you know, you've got lack of energy, but then you have a lack of motivation and you probably don't make the right decisions when you're kind of lacking those things. And I wanted to ask you about, you know, the different clients that you've worked with, but what's the common thing at the moment that they're coming to you to, for you to help them with?

Well, it's always about behavior really. It's about, you know, they'll dress in different ways. Like, we need to be more productive. You know, people are working on the wrong stuff. We've lost a bit of our mojo. You know, we did a culture change. You know, there's always something going on, but ultimately what they want from me is they want people to show up with a big smile on their face, loving who they are, loving what they do, feeling more confident about taking some risk and experimenting. And nearly all of that is about simple behavioral tweaks and. And I'm a huge fan of it. If you look at all the big change programs that have been delivered over the last 20, 30 years by the big consultancies like McKinsey and Bain and all those lot, very few of them really work and actually depends which research you read, but it's between 75 and 85% because they change everything in one big go. It's very complicated. And the human psyche just goes, ah, scary. I'm going to revert to norm. Yeah. Whereas I'm a big believer if you can get them to do just little things a bit better every day that show a benefit to them and the business, then it will stick. Right. So if you just think about how many meetings you have in a day, if you can make them 10% better, because actually you start them right and you end them right, that's a huge impact amplified across the business, isn't it?

Yeah.

If you can make sure that everybody gets up in the morning knowing what their priority is for the day, and then they finish their day knowing what they've delivered, that's a massive impact across the business. So I do simple little things that are very sustainable, very human, give the individual benefit as well as the business, and then I find they stick.

I always think that's what pretty much every company I work for could have done with, is a bit of trying to understand more about their employees, not just how can they make us more money. And ultimately, often it goes in full circle. A happy kind of content employee probably is more productive and ultimately, you know, maybe stays at the company longer and you don't have the employees leaving. But when, when a company comes to you, I guess it depends on size, but kind of where do you start? Do you have. Do you kind of drill down onto where they are? Do you talk to management? Do you talk to all the staff?

So, I mean, you know, I do have a lot of clients that say, can you come in and do an assessment and get some insights and, you know, look at, you know, what's going on and do Some focus groups. But you know what? When I do that, I get exactly the same news every time. I mean, what you do get. What you do get specific is certain language patterns. Yeah. And you get some stories that are really useful and you understand a little bit more about what's going on within their culture. And that's. That is useful. But ultimately, we're all people. Right. You know, so therefore we all have the same stuff going on. We all have that negativity bias. We all got stuck on autopilot. Yeah. We all, you know, we all have problems with our focus because that's our design. And therefore, you know, you're not going to go into a company and they go, oh, they don't have a focus problem because they're all people. So they will. Right. So if you, if you fundamentally boil it down to our design as hunter gatherers, we're all going to be the same right now. We can dress it up in different ways, we can make it culturally specific. We can do things that make them feel as if it's very much about who they are. But ultimately, you're going to find it incredibly similar anywhere you go. Anywhere you go. And actually, you know, it is interesting. I do have some clients who say, oh, no, we're different, we're different. You just have to go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is it harder that, you know, when you talk about dealing with companies like, you know, let's say Nike or those type companies compared to a smaller group, is it harder because if they've got such a. Firstly, such a deep history, but such a huge company, because surely, I mean, I'm guessing here, but creating change when it's such a. A grand scale, like you say, takes a lot more thought maybe than when you've got a smaller group of people.

Oh, sure. I mean, it's a lot easier. I mean, you know, the smallest gig I've ever done, I did an agency that was about 70 people and we got an ROI within 10 days. Now, you can't do that with a Coca Cola. Yeah, it doesn't work. It's too complicated. So. But then what's interesting is with the small company, you can be a lot more flexible. You know, you can go with the flow, you can tailor things and. Because actually, you could be a bit more fleet of foot with a big company. That's where you really need to be. Simple, clear. You need to keep banging home the same message ten different ways, but the same message. And you have to hold sustaining structures around them to make sure it's supported. So actually all the discipline comes out when you're doing it at scale, because if it's not engaging, it's not entertaining, if it's not fun, they're just going to just move on. Right. It's as simple as that. So you've got to really appeal to the humanity bit to make that work. But that's the fun challenge. Culture change used to be quite a scientific thing. There's a lot of amazing boffins out there and lots of professors who knew how to pull the right levers. Now it's freaking Netflix. If I'm not entertaining people, if I'm not getting people to engage in it because there's something in it for them and they're excited about it, it's over. And that's a very interesting place to work. Now. There's always going to be a place for the professors because there's going to be companies like that who like their numbers and their science, but they won't find me.

Yeah, I was thinking back to, you know, when I. When I worked in different companies and they bring someone in to talk to you and it wasn't necessarily about. I mean, very rarely in those days was it any motivational speaker or anybody that was helping you think differently. It was. Might been something to do with compliance or financial regulations, but you could tell within, probably they might not have even got started, but you could tell by the way they spoke as they got set up and the way they kind of moved around that you think this isn't, you know, this is going to be a glaze over event. And for you, do you go into the companies yourself? Do you have a team of people around you go in as a group?

Yeah. So I've got a very small team, actually. I've got a business partner, Jim Lusty, who is a legend, who is the most positive man on the planet and has amazing energy and we deliver, I'd say, 90ish percent of the work. We've got a team of associates, all people I've worked with for at least 20 years who are very similar, but I don't have teams of people to deliver it for me. I did have that in my last business, but I like to do the work and I don't want to just do new business and then go over to somebody else. Now you'll never see me again because that's not what it's about. It's about this, Right. The connection. We do do a lot of digital stuff now, so obviously to have the impact that we want at scale, we do lots of digital workshops which can be bought as a package. And actually the results of them are amazing. We just had about 800 people go through our new one and people's energy was up 43% within 20 days. So you can actually get incredible impact by doing that. But again, it's a show, right? You need to make it entertaining, it needs to be fast. They need to get an impact immediately. If it's vaguely tricky, they'll switch off. So you've got to think about how you package things in that way. But if you do it in a way that's totally human and people look forward to it, then you can have incredible results that way.

Some good advice for anybody that's in companies delivering a presentation or a meeting, because it is that of. I always thought you should tell people if they could just put their phones down, because there's nothing worse than halfway through a talk and you look and although I was guilty that I was doing a talk last year, only to probably about 20, 25 people, and there was a guy at the back of the room, and after about 10 minutes, your brain starts playing tricks on you because you see him and he was going to. And I thought, he hates it. He hates me. You know, he thinks it's rubbish. And every time I looked, he was just scrolling on his phone. And at the end, he was the first one to come up and say, I've taken so many notes on my phone. That was really good.

That's the problem. He's just connecting with you on LinkedIn. That's what he was doing.

And I was just like, it's so funny how your brain can play tricks on you when you're talking to big groups and now talking about talking. You know, the whole man academy was all about encouraging guys to. How could it. To make sure that they've got someone in their life that they can talk to. And that hasn't got to be because they've got mental health issues, but it's a business idea or, you know, just generally kind of having your football team, or be it your dad or a friend. And I know you'd written, if we don't express our emotions, we're suppressing them. And that's not great for our health, unsurprisingly, because suppressed emotions tend to pop back up, often in surprising and negative ways. What about for yourself? Through the. The years of the companies you worked at and what you're doing and kind of writing the books, who have you found that you kind of. You go to to talk to.

So well. So number one, I've got a coach I've been working with for almost 20 years, I speak to every week. And it's invaluable. You know, 20 years of the same person, but I still find massive value in it. So that's really important. It's really important to have, you know, friends that you can be completely unfiltered and honest with. And I'm super lucky. I've got the most amazing support network of incredible friends who are great entrepreneurs, business people who've done incredible things and they get stuff and I can pick up the phone to them and they will drop everything to talk to me as I would for them. And that is super, super useful. And then actually the talk it out approach that I've launched as a tech startup, I use every week, every single week. And actually at the moment I'm probably using it every day. So that's a very simple way of making sure I'm processing my emotions and getting into my subconscious. And I find that just a game changer.

Well, let's talk about that because I was really interested to see that. I know there's. And I have no idea where the saying came from, but it would do someone good even if they just spoke to a lamppost. Just talking. It doesn't matter what's coming back. And often you can find the person that you're talking to doesn't know, might know what to say back to you or they say the wrong thing. It just pisses you off. So tell us a bit about the app. I was so interested to firstly hear about it and then to read more about it.

Yeah, so basically I came up with it as a creative technique. It's called talk it out. I came out with a creative technique in 2005 when I wrote my first book. And what it's very good at doing is getting you out of your conscious story into your subconscious. Because anything you work on, you have a conscious story in your brain and it would be the story I'd tell you if you said, so how's the next book project going on? You go, well, I'm trying to get a publisher and blah, blah, blah. Now, as long as you're telling that story, you're trapped in that 5% of your processing. What it does is just by walking and talking is it gets through that story. So other stuff can bubble up from your subconscious. A bit like taking a cork from a bottle of champagne. So the other stuff literally bubbles up. We taught it as a creative technique and we Just noticed that people coming back with ideas and insights, but they just felt better. So we researched it with the University of Bristol and lo and behold, it reduces anxiety and it ups happiness. And the way it works is very simple. What you think is what you feel, but 95% of your thinking is subconscious. And therefore most people have no idea whether having a good day versus a bad. Yeah, that's the truth of it, right? You know, and we've all had those days and we, we've gone, why am I so pissed off? Yeah, I am pissed off, but I don't know why.

Why?

Yeah, exactly. And this will help you understand why. And therefore, when you understand why, you get a choice, because then you can do something with it. Right? It's as simple as that. And it's a very simple walking, talking technique. Now, there's, there's 450 million people on this planet with, you know, a diagnosable mental or emotional health challenge. Right now, 300 million won't talk to another human being. I just think that's a travesty. I just think that's just not right. But what we do know is they're five times more likely to talk to a machine than a person, which is frightening, but that's what it is. That's why we built the app so that on everyone's phone they can have it for free, they can talk into it and they can process what's going on for them so they get more clarity on why they feel the way they do. And therefore they can get rid of that anxiety and feel better about who they are. As simple as that.

I think it's a great idea. And we again started the whole Mountain Academy back in 2018, and it's encouraging guys to get together to talk as well as giving them those little golden nuggets to do life better. And one of those things was about some of the guys that I've done either a bit of coaching for or just exchange emails with across the world now. So you've got guys in Canada, in the us, in Germany and in Scotland or these far flung places. But often a lot of them found that they either didn't have anybody to talk to, you know, and there's a difference. When you mate at work, you just talk about football and usual bollocks. But also some of them, you know, that they didn't have anybody to talk to that would actually listen and could understand. And there's that great saying, I'm always, I never remember who. But, you know, 80% of people don't care about your problems and 20% are glad you've got them.

That's true.

And you go and talk to someone and you try and explain what's going in your head and they're just like, oh, well. And you're like, oh, I feel a bit silly. So that's why I think that app, I know I'll be putting it on our E letter to say to guys, look, even if they don't think it's for them, it might be that they know someone else. And you never know with these things. So from your first idea of it, when was it finally launched? How long did it take more interest in these ideas? Because you can think about years.

No, of course. I mean, I first came up with the idea for creativity in 2005, last January. So a year and a bit ago I was in Columbia hanging out with a bunch of Shaman, having a rather good time and doing some rather interesting journeying. And at that point I just went, I've just got to launch this.

You're going to have to tell me about that, Chris. You can't just skip over Shaman. And.

Yeah, well, I was invited. That was really cool. I was invited to go over there and have a few days of spiritual kind of experiences with these shaman. And I'm the only. The only Westerner they've ever invited. It was amazing. But it did involve ayahuasca, which is definitely a medicine.

I'll tell you why, I'll say this. That's why I think I said to you before we started recording, people could say, can you send through your questions? And I'm like, no, because we don't know where it's going to go, something like that. And I'm so interested in it and how different people's experiences are. So talk to me about ayahuasca and your. Your experience.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's hardcore. So no one spoke English, you know, and I don't. I don't speak Spanish, so I was completely stuck. And it was purely an experience with that. You just had to immerse yourself in.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's hardcore. I mean, it's a very hardcore thing. Everyone, you know, I was there with this particular village and all their elders came out. People, you know, they flew in about three or four showmen from around Colombia is an extraordinary experience and I was very, very lucky and, you know, I had a lot of gratitude for it, but it's hard work. Everyone's throwing up everywhere. You know, I didn't, but I wish I did because it's quite hard and it's definitely. It felt like I had the cleaners in, if that makes sense. It felt like a dino rod into my head and it cleaned me out. It wasn't a pleasant experience at all. But here's the thing, and this is, this is what I'm fascinated by. For about 40 days afterwards, I didn't have one negative thought, not one attachment, not one judgment, nothing. And it was as if I was reborn as far as my head was concerned. And it's extraordinary because actually, in that place, all you have is happiness. All you are is present, all you're capable of is doing interesting work. And actually it's something that we can all, I think, access that particular state without taking ayahuasca. And that's my fascination. And for me, talking out helps me get somewhere towards that. It's not painful at all. It's quite a pleasant process and it might not be quite as profound as that experience, but it can get me to a place where actually the noise in my head stops because actually I understand what the voices are saying, I know where I'm at and I'm clear. And therefore I can actually engage in what's in front of me. And if I could bring that to other people on the planet, then that is my purpose, that is why I'm here is priceless.

Was that your first time of having a go with ayahuasca? And I'm so interested to hear some people, they did it once and they didn't feel I need it. Other people are like, I'm not saying they want to do it too often, but they felt like I need a bit more of this.

You know, I completely understand it. You know, some people really enjoy the process. I haven't been back. It's not that I won't go back, but I don't feel the need to. But, you know, that night I had it three times. I mean, nobody else had it three times. I was the western nut bag who went, yeah, all right, I'll do it three times. And therefore I had quite. Yeah, I had quite an experience. But I'm just interested in what can change your psyche, what can help you become more conscious. And the research around mental health and psychedelics is extraordinary. I mean, in 10 years time it's going to be very commonplace. And I think it's moving the right direction because, let's face it, giving kids drugs to get them over depression and anxiety is not the way to look after our next generation. We have to think differently about how we do that and if there are things that we can learn from nature, I'm all over it.

Yeah. At the moment there's a lot of talk about giving kids drugs in certain forms and I'm very much of a. Let's kids, you know, kids are born perfect and then they're kind of wrapped in shit from all their experiences and the, you know, the television programming and the. And the schools and all the different stuff. So, yeah, it's an interesting one to delve deeper into.

I agree. And, you know, if I don't have the answer for everyone, but if I can help a few kids not have to do that because they can process using talk it out, then, you know, I'm onto a winner. I'm on to win. But anyway, to your question though, then I'm. I borrowed a load of money last summer, so it's early last summer. And look, this is what it looks like. The app is out in the store now. We're testing it with the National Health Service as we speak. The results look really good. Microsoft have just said they want to partner with us and put it into teams. So that would be 149 million people that have access to it. Yeah, and Coca Cola want to test it. So everyone's going, yes, we can see that this makes sense.

So.

So in a very short period of time, actually, we've got to a stage where things are getting quite exciting. But my ambition is this. I want to be able to make it available to anyone on the planet for free. To do that, I need to be able to pay for it because they're very expensive free apps. So we'll just have a little kind of premium version that a lot of businesses will be signing up to. And actually one of the things we were doing recently, we just tested it where what we get people to do is they do a talking out at the start of their day, they do their morning routine and they do a talk it out just to get clear on what their big thing is for the day, what their focus should be. And then at the end of the day, they do a talk it out before they finish work for five minutes just to see what they've learned. And within 10 days, their energy goes up, their sense of control goes up. But they are three times more likely to have positive impact and they are 10 times, sorry, three times more likely to have to use their talents and they're 10 times more likely to have a positive impact every day. So what I love is it gives you wellbeing, but it also makes you more Productive and, I don't know a business that doesn't want that combination.

Yeah. Yeah. No, thanks. No more productivity.

Exactly.

That's the thing. It's that, you know, for so long I've been trying to, you know, either my partner, with the nutrition that she does with people, to remind people you can't just take a pill and everything be fixed. It needs to be, you know, a daily, you know, about what you're eating, what you're thinking, what you're consuming in the media and around you, the chemicals you put on your skin, the language you, you know, you give to yourself kind of sometimes beating yourself up over it. And that led me on to. I wrote it down after Talkout was decluttering. I'd seen one of your videos on decluttering. I mean, I think your mind, but even like an office, because about your. Your workspace and space to think. I just wondered about. You could talk about decluttering and the impact you think it could have for people.

Yeah, so this is. This is an unusual one. So one of our energy experiments for a month was about decluttering. And a lot of people feel like it's changed their lives. So we're like, well, we've got to give it a go. And actually, what I've realized is I'm terrible at decluttering physically because I just. I will put that off forever because it feels like homework. But when I do it, it does feel amazing. It does feel as if you are renewed. So there's definitely something interesting about that. But I do a lot of decluttering in my life. So time, I will go through my diary and rip things out if it's not useful anymore. I will not do things that are today not relevant, but they were when I went in. I think that's a discipline. I think, you know, you talk about friends and about the fact that you get rid of the negative ones. You know, we never declutter our friendship groups, do we? And yet, you know, we're always meeting new people, but we never get rid of the old ones. You need space. You got to declutter them as well. Right. You know, so I think this is all about just consciousness. This is about saying, what do I need in my life today? And I really need versus the stuff that I've just got knocking about. Because actually, when you're on autopilot, you want everything, don't you? Because when you're on autopilot, you're back into survival mode, where if you're a hunter, gatherer and you had Enough logs for the fire for tonight. You go and get a few more for tomorrow, wouldn't you? Because the more, the more chance for survival. But we've got everything we need. We don't need more shit in our lives. We're constantly accumulating, aren't we? So I think it's really good discipline just to cut through and say, actually, what do I need?

Yeah. And I'll tell you what I love about that. I bet if. Because we've kind of posed a similar kind of question when we try and do our weekly letter to guys, which again, goes out to guys around the world. So it's interesting. We've got a real mixture of guys that might be in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and then some guys are in their 20s. So sometimes the emails I get back be so interesting because one guy will have had a huge amount of wisdom and he's been through a lot of life. Other guys just starting out. And you always kind of, you know, you pick up the people around you that you're hanging around with. And like you said earlier, I try and say to people about not having, you know, not allowing too much your energy to bet to get sucked away by those kind of either negative people or the jobs you do as well.

Yeah.

And that led me onto your TED Talk, where you spoke about or, you know, when you got people to do the paper airplanes.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And part of that was about kind of taking action and testing and getting instant feedback on things. And I wrote about demanding feedback. So can you tell us what it was like with the TED Talk? And why did you get people to throw paper airplanes at you on the stage?

So basically, most of my clients, if I give them a challenge, what they do is they lock themselves behind closed doors and debate it with loads of data. And I just think that's not the way to. To learn or to grow or to come up with better ideas, because that's just a conscious game. And what we need to do is access our subconscious. So I'm a believer in making things real, experimenting, trying things out to see what you can learn from it. And I got to throw a paper airplane as an experiment. And I asked them afterwards, I said, look, so how many of you, if we did that again, would do the same design? And very few people would because they just learned. And so often in life, we don't experiment enough. We don't, you know, we always think if it's important, it needs to be right and perfect. And therefore, you know, we won't experiment in A playful way, because we're just desperate. It goes wrong, so we lose the fun there. And then the stuff that we're doing on a daily basis, we just think, what if it's working? We just crack on. We just keep it the same and we don't freshen it up. So I'm just a huge, huge fan of trying new things. And actually the whole book up in your Elvis came from us experimenting for two and a half years trying things out. I mean, I had no idea if decluttering was going to be useful or not, you know, I mean, when. When I first heard I was decluttering, I was like, really? Honestly. But actually there was something really useful in it. There hasn't been one experiment that we've done that have. That hasn't given me something. I've always got some value.

Yeah.

And I think life, it should be an adventure, you know, we shouldn't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You know, this whole kind of, you know, you get your first job, then the first job you want and, you know, they'll pay off the mortgage and da, da, da. It's like, what does it have to be that way? Can't we have some surprises? Can't we change things up? You know, I'm constantly changing who I am, so why should I keep doing the same stuff in the same way? So we got to experiment, you know, it's part of our lifeblood and my clients love it. You know, when we get them doing it, they get a massive kick because guess what, it's just more fun to be somebody who does new and different things. It's just more rewarding, you know, every day that you have a little surprise and yippee. Shouldn't that be what life's about?

Is that. I wonder, do you work with companies on. I know there's coaches specifically for this, for, like, values. Because I would guess, you know, we've only met each other in the last hour, but I would guess that fun is very high up on your list of values. And I. And probably a bit of variation as well and stuff like that. And I didn't ever think about values probably until I got to about 35 and started learning more about personal development. And I went to some of the Tony Robbins events around the world and stuff. And it was so funny how they'd ask you a question like, what do you actually want in life? And you were like, I don't know, not a clue.

I could say what I don't want.

Yeah, that's it. You could say what all the negative things or what you don't want, and that's one of the things we try and ask guys, is when we talk about fulfillment, what you wanted five years ago or before you had kids, or when you were just a lad with money in your pocket and a fast car, but you didn't have any other mortgage or ties. Changes all the time. And I wondered for you. It's a big conversation to have about being fulfilled. But would you say that your level of fulfillment has grown as you've got older and you kind of learn more about yourself?

Definitely, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think that's what living is all about, isn't it? Is getting more awareness of who you are, what makes you tick and where you get your energy from. And, you know, when I was young, you know, I could survive on 10 pints of beer and a curry every night, get up strong. And that's not me anymore. That's just not who I am. I've completely changed.

Yeah.

And, you know, I find myself, you know, walking around my garden, looking at, you know, flowers and leaves and going, oh, I never did that. I was young, you know, I'm a different person, a different place. So naturally, I think we get more attuned to it. And that's really important because I think that's what this is all about. That's why we're here. We're here to get more fulfillment from the days that we have because they're quite short. And, you know, I'm massively keen that, you know, every night I go to bed, I go. That counted. You know, there was something useful in that day. And it might be useful in the fact that, you know, you help somebody smile and you help somebody with their life or their challenge or whatever's going on. It might be. It's useful because you had an idea that you hope is going to create some value somewhere. But, you know, I just don't want to waste this time, you know. And by the way, I'm very happy to have a day where I just have a bit of pleasure myself and I don't impact other people's lives. That's fine too. But it's got to count. It's got to count.

Do you know what? That's what. When I've spoke to guys who do, and there's nothing wrong with, you know, some people love doing the 9 to 5 job, as it were. And I mean, I wish it used to be 9 to 5, because it was 6:45 till 5 or 6 but I realized with a lot of the guys, when they would discuss for me how I managed to leave working the city, it was hard because you paid quite well and you know, you got lots of money paid into your bank account each month and you got bonuses and all the usual rubbish that you thought was really, really important to you. But I had that time where I realized I wasn't making any impact in the world apart from giving the company money. And, you know, lots of investment bankers are making money off dealing with me. And I was like, is that in 40, 60 years, whatever it is time when I'm on my, you know, in my rocking chair test, when I've got great grandchildren around me, will you sit back and be like, I'm so glad I made loads of money for other people? And you said, what other impact do you have? And that's where I see with your talks, with the book, with the stuff you do, it's have it, you know, you don't have to have it all the time, but it's that the feeling of the positive impact on helping others.

Yeah. So we need meaning in our lives, right? We need meaning and it's vital. I don't know if you've read Lost Connections by Johann Hari, but it's a brilliant book and it's actually all about why there's lots of anxiety and depression in the world because they've lost these different connections. But also it works very well on thinking about how do I get a positive life.

Right.

And one of the things there is all about, you know, yes, have good values, not junk values, that's really important, but also have some meaning in the work that you do. Right. Because if you can access that, then that has a huge impact on your well being. And there are a lot of people that work for money, you know, and there are a lot of people that have a choice. So again, I'm privileged. I have a choice. And I have been very deliberate in making sure my life is based on stuff that I'm deeply passionate about, which is getting people jumping out of bed, loving who they are and what they do, and making sure that they know that life's a game that they can win if they just have a smile on their face and they've got more energy about them. And you know what, that's what I want to do. And if I can make that show up every day, I'm a very happy man. Now, we might not be able to do it in every bit of the work we do, but even if you are doing a Job that sucks. You still have a chance to make somebody else smile. You still have a chance to do it in your way, with your personality. You, you still have a chance to bring some of your uniqueness to bear in any situation. In any situation. Because there is no such thing as a perfect job. I know people that own breweries, fashion photographers, and they've still got to do their expenses. There's always a bad side to a job. But the question is, how do you make it fit for you better so you feel as if your energy is aligned with that. Personally finding meaning in the work that you do and making sure your values live through it is something we should all be doing because then, you know, every day is a bit more technical in it.

Yeah. And then I would say that, you know, people want to be around you more if you're. And again it's, it comes back to kind of what was it you'd written? Positivity is a superpower.

Yeah.

And, and we all know if you said now you're going to be surrounded, you know, we're going to bring in a team of people and we're going to work on this big project for the next two weeks. And I'm not saying everybody has to come in high fiving each other and you know, with sunshine and rainbows, but that kind of level of positivity, I was trying to say to people, you know, you can change your mindset by changing your thoughts and you know again what you're consuming and stuff. So I think that's one of the big kind of messages we try to, I say hammer home but just gently remind people of all the time. And I know you'd said going back to demanding feedback. What is it like for you going through life with like the book when you've written it, do you then do you write it and before it's published you send it out to various people that you look for their kind of feedback or is it kind of you publish it and see how, how it goes?

I'm a bit more of the latter, to be honest. Yeah. I mean, you know, obviously you have editors and all that kind of stuff and you, there are certain people who are part of the process so they will read it. So probably 10 people read it before it went out and probably three of those had some sort of editorial comments. So, you know, I like to get feedback that way. But equally what I've learned is this with creativity and creativity is the bedrock of my life. I guess at some point you have to say that's Good enough. That's all right. One of the challenges with the businesses I work with is unless it's 100%, it's not good enough. I think that's awful. What a terrible world to which you live, where it always needs to be perfect because it never will be. Right. So you're always striving for something that's impossible. And actually that last 20% of increments, the amount of effort that goes into that is ridiculous. You can get to 80% really fast and you can learn. So why don't you do that? So that's why I'm into this experimenting and just checking it out there. You know what, on the first print of any book, what, 5,000, you'll learn next print, you can do some different stuff, right?

Yeah.

It's not there forever, is it? So we've got to get over ourselves a bit. And you know what? Not everyone's going to like what you do. So the reality is you will never please everybody. The question is, are you pleasing yourself enough and the people you care about? And if you are, crack on. I say crack on.

That's really important part of. With the whole Man Academy. I wrote a while ago that the whole Man Academy isn't for all men. And what I meant by that is any. Any guy's welcome to get involved, but, you know, I am, you know, from South London. I'm probably going to say fucking shit now and again. We're going to talk about mindset and maybe sport and health and all these different things. And it's like, if they're not the things that particularly float your boat, then it's not going to be for you and it's finding your. What's the word? Finding your tribe.

Exactly. You know what I was saying earlier about culture change, all the stuff I do at corporates, There's a lot of companies that will never phone me up and nor should they. We're not going to fall in love, are we? It's just going to be a nightmare. But the ones that do phone me up, but we do fall in love, life is brilliant and I'll be grateful for all that work because it's fantastic and we make the world spin better. We've all got to find that energetic, connect. There are some people that like to be miserable and they can go and find the other miserable people and hang out. Yippee. Not on my watch, around my house.

Yeah, I thought you're gonna say something else. You said they can go and f. And I was like, oh, here we go.

I'm too loving for that.

Well, one more question for you then was, and I always love this one, is how did being a dad say, change your life? You know, what was it like?

In every way. I would say in every way. So being a dad, it's really interesting because, number one, I say it's stop me being selfish because I think it's very easy for you to be quite egocentric in this world. And actually, this is the problem we've got with social media and everything else. It's all about me, me, me, me, and how do I shape up. When you get kids, that kind of goes out the window because you're like, actually, how do I survive? How do I keep sane? It's a very different gig, isn't it? And it's quite challenging. And I think you get a lot more clued up as to what's important in life, you know, So I think it's been very good for me to get more connected to what is important. I think it's made me more empathetic, more loving, a lot less judgmental, which is great, and a lot more grateful, actually. So it's been really good for that. But I gotta say, you know, it's grueling and there are times I think I'm the worst dad on the planet. And I tell you what, you can't take yourself too seriously. When you get it all wrong, as we often do as dads, it's very good for bringing you down a peg. But, you know, I wouldn't change it for the world. I really wouldn't.

I think it's the more. I mean, I'm what, my 40, I think, but I'm 42 now, so, you know, my eldest is nearly four. So I, you know, went for, you know, 30 plus years of not having kids. And I would label it as I was. No, beautifully selfish because you could do whatever you wanted. And if you were hungover, you know, kids don't care if you got a hangover. Kids don't care if you've got an expensive shirt on or you're late for an important meeting. And I was interviewing David Gandhi, who's our global ambassador, as we gave him a fancy name because it sounds great, but we were laughing because you can be having a really stressful day, but you go in and the kids are having dinner and one of them will give you a cuddle and wipe hummus or down your shirt or something like that, and you're just like, over dad, what can you do? And you said it there we Were on a Zoom call the other night. We do a monthly Zoom call for some of the whole Man Academy guys. And one of the guys commented, he said, I realized how selfish I was before I had kids. And I said, and interesting to get your thoughts on it. I said that often. I've found that men are under pressure to say that when a child is born, it was the happiest day of their life. And I would say for me, it wasn't. It was. I was anxious, I was stressed and had much sleep. I. People like, oh, can you, can you say that? I was like, yeah, yeah. Because until you have that, I don't think you realize what it's like.

No, no. I mean, I actually think that's a massive freaking conspiracy. You know, all my mates who had kids went, oh, yeah, no, kids are great, they change your life. Then I got them. I was like, you lied to me. You just wanted me in your club, but I could be miserable with you and go on holiday with you, with all the other parents with kids. But then you do get it over time, don't you? You get it over time. But. But, you know, for some people there's a massive revelation the first time they hold their child. It's like. And for others it's, you know, you just don't get it. For some time we're all different in the way it works, but there is a more profound connection to, I think, humanity and life and what this is all about. And, you know, like, that for me has been very good and it's not for everyone again, but like, you know, nothing is for everyone. But, you know, for me it's done me too good and I'm delighted.

Now. It's one of those things that I've still got friends that are just about to have kids and I always look and think, wow, I wonder how that guy will change over the next. Because when a baby's first born, they sleep a lot, thankfully, and they're not answering back and asking you question after question after question after question you're not having to deal with. I took our little one down to London this weekend. We went to the Tower Bridge experience on the riverboat and you have to work out when they're hungry, when they might need to go to toilet, all these different things and carry their, you know, their rabbit size bag around with you and all these stuff. And I'm like, man, this is what I love though. You go through phases in life as a man and what's important to you at one point isn't Important to you the next.

So yeah, yeah, that's for sure.

It's always interesting to talk to you. Well, last question is about if I'm going to send the email list that they should really buy the book because I think it's great. But for you, what would you say that if someone's going to read the book, they would kind of their main takeaway or couple of takeaways would be from it?

Well, for me I think it's all about increasing awareness of what makes you tick and learning some little games you can play to get your energy right and actually being a bit more brutal about it, prioritizing your energy above everything else because everyone else will win if you get you right. And actually there's some very, very simple things in there. You know, you mentioned the power of napping. That's a game changer for people. The fact that we've got very little focus and learning how to use it for the stuff that counts is a game changer. The whole talk it out thing for emotions. So there's lots of things in there and it's a little cherry pick. So I'm a bit like you. I've read so many books, when I've got to the end, I've gone, I'm not sure what I've learned. This is packaged in such a way, it's a 90 minute read. You will get 24 things you can do immediately. If you only want one of them, I think that's still good value, do you know what I mean? Because it will have an impact on your life. So, you know, if you're one of those people that just wants value and action, it's all over there. And it's also very pretty, isn't it? Because we've got a really good designer working on it. So even if you don't like what's in it, the joy of reading it will be there.

Well, actually that's a question because the front of it is just the dots. So for a moment I was like, am I? Because I have the digital version. I appreciate your team were kind enough to send me the copy so I could devour it. And I was like, what am I looking at here?

Yeah, well, so. And again, this is my fifth book, right? So I've done them with Penguin and HarperCollins and I've always had a problem in the fact that, you know, they'll go, you can't do that on the COVID No one will buy it. You know, the salespeople don't like it. And honestly the Process drove me nuts. So we self published this one. I said, I'm going to do whatever I want, therefore it's a bit different.

I think that's great though. It's a reminder that, you know, it's, I say bucking the system, but it's like, you know, just because it's always been done that way, it doesn't mean it has to always stay that way. And was that for you? Would you now continue to, whatever books you do in the future, always self publish?

I'll never say never. I mean, you know, if there is a cool, groovy publisher out there, I'm, I'm open to chat. But the problem is the publishing industry is so backwards. It's such a traditional place and they're not very good at creativity. Generally the ones that I've worked with, there are some good people out there, but it's hard. It's hard and it's an old system. What tends to happen is you tend to put your book out there if it sells in the first week because you get data straight away, they'll support it and if it doesn't, they won't. And that's the nature of the business. So it's not the way I like to do things, truth be told. So that's why I'm doing it myself.

Yeah, it is a game in a way, isn't it? And if you know how to play it. But I know it's like I always have this thing about when. And I've got friends that say I'm a New York Times best selling author. And what you realize is that you can mess around with the algorithms, you can reduce the book to one penny and if you get like 2,000 bought in one day in that 24 hours, it goes the top. They screenshot it and then it disappears. They're like, I'm a New York Times. And I'm like, you're not. So I'm always like, listen, I'm never going to be one. I'm not playing that game.

But it's just a game. I mean, you know, I wrote my first book and you know, I honestly think that because you write a book, people suddenly perceive you as different. It's a nonsense. It's a nonsense. All you've done is write a book. But my speaking fee doubled on my first book. And I'm like, what? That doesn't make me a better speaker. It's ridiculous. But people have got this thing. I like to write them because I get emails from people who have read them. In South Korea and they'll suddenly go, do you know what? I've read this book and I've done this and it's helped my life.

Brilliant.

There is something beautiful about the broadcast nature of books because you can reach people that you can't any other way. You know, I like that.

And in years to come as well. I always think that's, you know, I've been sent books by someone that's a bit of a dog earned book that a guy who's like 60 sent me. And I'm like, yeah, I'll read it. And then you're like, wow, this is, this is amazing. And actually I interviewed, I don't know if you heard of or know a guy called Daniel Priestley who's written Key post of Influence and various other books, but that was one of them about, he said, you know, if you want to get ahead in whatever you're doing, even if you write a very short book, a very, you know, an e book, people's perception of you, you're like, well, he's written books, he must be an expert.

It's true. It's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? But, you know, we hold authors, you know, in high esteem. Not necessarily correctly, but there we go. That's what it is. I keep writing books, so I'm not complaining.

Yeah. Now there's a listen, if you want to increase your fees, just write a book. Doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter what's in it, just write it. But, well, I know I'm sure you got plenty to be getting on with and I appreciate all your time. I could talk to you for hours because I said my partner today, after listening to your talks on YouTube and reading your book, I said, Chris is the kind of guy that I wish I'd have worked for.

Well, I think we'd work together, to be honest, Anthony. I think we've had a good time.

Yeah. To learn from and feed off the energy. So I appreciate your time and also I appreciate your team being very good with their communication and sending me the books. That's always good to see.

Always have people better than you. That's my advice.

And what's your plans for rest of today?

Well, what we've got today, oh, I've got to do a little bit of a blog. I've got a gig with Nike tomorrow. So we're going to do a bit of prep for them actually the next three days and I've got to check in with the data on the test for the talkitout app, which is looking very exciting, actually. We've got a big old meeting with Microsoft tomorrow, so we've got to get everything lined up for that. So a fair few things, but they're all fun. They're all about making the world spin better, so I'm happy.

Well, I must say, I appreciate, Chris, all your time. We'll get all the links in the show, notes for the book, and the appreciate, maybe even more importantly, the app, because I know that kind of thing can really be a game changer. And hopefully I'll see you for a coffee in real life at some point, when things return to normal.

I'd love that. I would love that. Look, it's been a pleasure, Anthony. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, lovely. All right, Chris, speak to you soon.

Take care, buddy.

Bye. Bye.