EP079 - TIME TO BE A MAN | WHOLE MAN ACADEMY

Whole Man Academy. Because the world needs strong men, Wholeman Academy is changing the game for men around the world. It's for guys who want to live an epic life of fun and adventure. No matter what we believe, deep down, all men want to go on their own hero's journey to becoming resilient, confident, fearless and fulfilled. Listening to be inspired by guys who don't settle for living a life of mediocrity. This is your call to action action and call to adventure. Are you ready?

Hello, it's Anthony here from the Whole Man Academy. This is just a quick video to explain a couple of things that are happening for the Whole Man Academy. Firstly, we've just launched our new website which went live a couple of days ago. So go and check that out if you haven't seen it already, which is unsurprisingly, www.wholemanacademy.com. also, today's podcast is actually, well, I was invited quite beautifully onto Ed Draper's Sport and Life podcast. Now, Ed Draper is a Sky Sports presenter, but you might remember we actually interviewed him on our pod on episode 76. So if you haven't already, go back and check that out. But Ed's a good friend of mine, knows a lot about stuff and he basically flips the script back on me and we talk more about the Whole Man Academy and about all sorts of men's stuff. So that's covered. Season two of the podcast is coming up in September. Got a great lineup of epic guys who've got an unbelievable story and golden nuggets to help you do life better. So that'll be coming out very soon. We've also got a lovely new intro to the podcast, so thanks to Alistair who did that for us or the voiceover. Epic music and epic voiceover ready for guys that want to live an epic life. The other thing is we also launched the Energy Protocol course for guys, which is online, launched a couple of weeks ago and that is via. We've been sharing on our on our weekly letter that goes out to men around the world. So if you haven't, or if you haven't seen that already and you want to check it out, just subscribe to our e letter www.wholemanacademy.com movement and then you can check it out. And that is all about recharging your biological battery. Someone sent me an email. Thanks very much. It's about chickens. Interesting. Anyway, so we've got our new intro. Yeah, go and subscribe to the E letter. Jump into the podcast. I hope you enjoy it. And we'll catch you soon for season two of the Whole Man Academy podcast.

And here we are. Anthony Astbury, welcome back to the podcast. I think this is probably your first pure solo appearance because last time you were interviewing me for your Wholeman Academy podcast and before that was with James golden up at Daylesford Organic 18 months ago, which it seems a lifetime ago. Pretty pre pandemic, but how you doing? You're well. You've whipped out your Whole Man Academy backdrop as well, so I think this is going out on your YouTube channel. So I look like a right scruff bag. I've got my shirts and suits behind.

Well, this is real life. I'm actually in my bedroom, so if I took the background away, it'd just be a white wall. But it's funny, actually, just as we were talking about that, the E letter that I wrote for the Whole Man Academy, which I'm sure we'll go into yesterday, was all about the progress of three years of the Whole Man Academy. And at the start of it, we had nothing at all. And it makes me laugh now where people go, oh, I really like your branding or your, your, your, your background or your this, and you're that and you're like, it's a good reminder to us all that, you know, sometimes these things take, take a long, long time. And my point in the letter was, you know, you, sometimes you only need to know the first step or the next step, if that makes sense. Because if you, as a, as a broadcaster, you know, you can never plan your whole path in life because you don't know who you're going to meet, what you're going to do, you know, what opportunities you're going to get. So even having the backdrop is a good example of it's little bits of progress that we made week after week. Relentless kind of taking action and making progress. Basically.

Yeah, that's a difference. Sometimes when you studied sport or you've come from a sport background is when you set goals, particularly in the gym, about weightlifting or whatever it might be, or running, they're sort of tangible. You can incrementally plan that way. We're sort of withdrawn to goals in life, but I think there are a lot of variables, aren't there? Because you can't say, I'm going to do this by this destination, because you might rely on gatekeepers selecting you for something. There may be a myriad of things, There might be a pandemic. So that's an interesting one, isn't it? Because. So you sort of have flexible Goals. Is that how you approach it?

Yeah, I think it's. I remember about, well, let's say five years ago, I started on my personal development journey on what one of the great things they made us do then was write down. I was out in Miami at one of the Tony Robbins kind of conferences for seven, eight days or whatever it was. And I went through the whole process of. I went to one of the events in London which was Unleash the Power within, did a whole weekend there with 10,000 people at the Excel center. And that was mind blowing. And then there's always a next step, which usually costs more money. And I dropped another five grand on a couple of weeks away. So I went to Tenerife, stayed at the Ritz there and we did Life and Wealth Mastery. And then I went in the December off to the US to Miami to, to spend I think seven or eight days in Miami. There it was personal development conference.

Yeah.

And I would say, yes, it's training as well as having your own mind explored. You know, what do you want to do? Where do you want to go with life? How, how are you going to reach fulfillment? You know, how easy to be happy.

Yeah, yeah.

So it covers a lot of different subjects, but I know for me it was, it was life changing. And funny enough, you know, it costs a lot of money. I reckon if you added those together with flights and hotels, it probably about 15 grand I spent. But I remember when I came back from Miami, I went to a net worth house which if remember is where Robbie Williams did his gig to 100,000.

People and Oasis, wasn't it?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's a fantastic place. And I went on a deep dive of a week of personal development there as well. This was a few years later, but one of the guys there said to me, oh, how much did it cost you for that stuff? And I said, you know, ballpark, 15 grand. And he's like, what did you get for that? And I said, and I said, two, two little boys.

Really?

What do you mean? And I said, well, I wasn't sure about my relationship with my partner at the time because it's a big commitment to stay together for the rest of your life. I said, and they had one day where they spend the whole day talking about relationships that you either have got that are going well or maybe you're not sure about or partners you want to find and how you show up as a person. And that helps me to come home and realize that the relationship I was in was the right one. And then we ended up having little tykes who are now currently running around downstairs. But, yeah, when the guy was like, all right, so it cost you 15 grand, but you got some children.

It's funny because people are very receptive to coaches in sport and fitness, and sometimes the concept of a life coach has sort of become stigmatized in a way, like a snake oil salesman or whatever. But actually, it's funny you mentioned Tony Robbins, because my dad actually listened to the cassette tapes of Tony Robbins in the think the late 80s, and then you sort of come back to him. And I started watching bits on YouTube and I've listened. I've never gone to one of the events. Actually, I do know people. Friend of mine, Tony, right. And who has a podcast called Zestology, was a big advocate of Tony Robbins. And. But it's. When you listen to him, actually, you realize, oh, no, there's definitely a merit in this because there's a wisdom and there's a kind of. Like he says, you know, you may as well learn from people who've plotted that route effectively. He's like a kind of conduit for successful people to other people, isn't it? Not just financially successful. He kind of combines that spiritual with the sort of material of the Western world and sort of gives you practical tips for material success, but also just feeling better, like you say, and feeling happier. He sort of is a shining example of the sort of virtue of seeking a coach or being a coach, isn't it?

I suppose. And also, you know, you touched on something there. His big thing is about success without fulfillment is failure. Because he knows, and certainly I know plenty of people who, on paper, you would say they, you know, they've got. They tick the boxes of the. They've got the money or they own a company, or they have got this, this, this and this. And actually, if you peel back the layers, they're not actually happy.

Yeah.

Because they haven't got enough money. Or maybe they're scared of losing the money they have got. Or, you know, they're actually not very fit and healthy. They might have loads of money, but they're not very fit and healthy. Or someone that's got certain things that we value and they actually don't feel that they're enough of a man by not having the other things in life. So, yeah, I've always remembered that success without fulfillment is failure because on the outside it can be looking great. But actually, you know, fulfillment is the holy grail, I think, no matter where you are in life.

Yeah.

And we all.

And also we know on the other side of it that you need that kind of material thing, especially when you have a family, don't need to provide. So there is that, that tension because it'd be great to sit in a field like Buddha and just meditate. I mean, you probably could make quite a lot of money out that now in a way because people watch you and you could charge ticket prices.

But it's not a bad idea.

Yeah, but it is, that is that duality, I suppose, that tension that we, that we feel sometimes, isn't it? And it's. Yeah. That balance between having goals and accepting life as it comes is a delicate one as well, isn't it, with the whole Man Academy and what Tony Robbins says actually is telling. I remember this thing he always says that I've heard repeated is people overestimate what they can achieve in a year, but underestimate what they can achieve in 10 years. And that takes sort of determined focus, doesn't it? I suppose is the key.

Yeah, that's. I mean, that's one thing to say. We look back on with the whole Man Academy and you know, the reason it was started was because a. We know there's a mental health crisis and men in. I mean, across the world, but let's focus on the UK here. But also the big thing was about, you name me, personal development platforms in the UK for men there, there basically really aren't any. Whereas in the us you have got all these different, let's call them gurus who you could go to and they running these big events. And what you noticed in the UK was you had guys from America coming over here and that was our options. So we knew there was a market for it. And you know, when we first started, we always say we didn't have a clue what we were doing. It was like, let's just get guys together to talk. So, you know, we, we invited a load of friends and sent some tickets out to people back in, well, 2018, September 2018. And we hired Soho House in London, in Soho, which might sound confusing people, but there's a few around the world. And you know, and that was the thing, it reminded me of a party where you didn't know if people were going to turn up or not. And suddenly, you know, we had guys filter through the door on a Saturday and we tried to make the event as opposed to. I always say it's about the feeling you get when you go into somewhere. And being Soho House meant you had Chesterfield sofas, you know, they Had a whiskey bar there. It was just that, let's say, ambiance of it felt quite manly. And I didn't want it to be an event where you go to an Ibis hotel and sit on chairs with, you know, funky colored pattern carpet. Yeah. And that's. And that's the experience you want. It's just like you create when you go to a good shop, isn't it? There's a smell, there's a feeling, there's a vibe there.

Yeah. Do you think there's a crisis? Is that what you think? There's a sort of crisis in masculinity, that we, we lack that identity, that we're not quite sure. There's a lot. There's a strong feminizing and probably civilizing and important thing when we look at what's happening in other parts of the world that maybe have less of that feminine influence that, you know, very violent and dangerous places. But there is a sense as a man that perhaps there's not a blueprint for us to follow. Is that one of the key motives for the whole man academy?

Yeah, I think, I mean, one of our sayings is the world needs strong men. And if people are confused by that, you're like, well, do you think that if we have weak men that is going to help us? It doesn't matter if you're talking about in government or in schooling or in the workplace. And what we try and do is cultivate an environment to build inner strength for a man. That could mean something different. So one guy compared to the other. But I can only look at where I was, you know, when I worked in the city, I worked in all different broking, trading places where you had a lot of strong, strong characters. And that environment where it taught me as well that sometimes you would meet people. I'm trying to think of a great example I saw the other day, but I got talking about the levels of testosterone in men. And if you actually look at that, you know, go back 30 years, the levels of testosterone, men has dropped hugely. I think it's something like 30, 40%.

Yeah.

Which you and I know is because of the environment around us, what you're eating, drinking, plastics, all the different stuff.

That'S affecting estrogens, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, once we included that in our, in our online course we've just released. But I think a lot of guys are confused about how they should be acting. You know, so for us, is that.

Because of testosterone or is that because of the society around it? Or they're too interlinked, maybe. I don't know.

Yeah, definitely interlinked, I think. And, you know, it depends what your role models are. But for us, yeah, we just say, you know, whatever your version of a strong man is, I think if you're mentally strong, then, you know, you can achieve whatever you want in life, basically.

Yeah. And it's interesting that, because, you see, it was spurred by the mental health crisis. And I think we're all concerned, pre pandemic and post pandemic, about health, physical health as well, too, clearly interlinked. What's interesting is the narrative around it. And I suppose what personal development teaches you is a level of responsibility and tools, bizarrely, because you're looking for help, so you go out and seek help. It's not like you've come up with this in your own room, but then you get the tools to build your own sort of mental house or physical house. How important is that? Because I'm always standard by now, and this is certain, and you've seen it through the pandemic, a real reliance on other people to resolve our problems or government to resolve our problems. How important is mental health, pre preemptive health and approach to life?

Yeah, I think that's important. It's about finding. It's a bit like if someone goes to the doctor and you don't just want to get some cream to cover up the issue, you want to go to the source of it and find out what's going on. I remember listening to someone that said it'd be like standing at a river and seeing people floating along, drowning, and you keep just picking them out and actually just go upstream and find who's throwing them in in the first place. You know, go to the source. And that's one of the things we all say for the whole man Academy. A man is made up of many segments, you know, so, you know, you could look at mental health, but obviously it's his physical health, maybe it's his family, his relationships, his financial level in life, his career. All these different things make up the segment of a man. And that's why, you know, when people talk about mental health, mental health has become a, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Popular to talk about and fashionable. But the angle we try and take at the whole man Academy is if you just label it as mental health all the time, a lot of guys will switch off. And my example of that is, when I worked in the city, if you worked on a broken floor with like, 300 other guys or you went into. And I've spoke to, you know, special forces guys, footballers, yourself on the podcast, coaches, all these different stuff. And they pretty much all of them agree. If you go into that big room of guys and say, hey, guys, who wants to come to a mental health event for men this weekend? You're not. You're going to probably get a shoe thrown at you. Whereas if you said, come to an event, we're going to build inner strength. They're like, resilience.

Yeah, that's it.

Resilience, confidence, you know, that kind of stuff. Suddenly they're like, oh, yeah, I'm interested in that.

It's really interesting, actually. One thing that you do give people is a location where presumably, by definition, I know you maybe have had some women show up for help with their men, and I suppose you have. You will be receptive to that. But I was speaking to a friend, I won't name him, but he was talking, and his wife's a very staunch feminist, and he was saying to her, what is the room for men now? Because it's interesting, you go past gyms with signs that say, you know, women only. No mirrors, no men, or something like that in terms of. And there's obviously a societal backlash, which I understand in large part because there's been a patriarchy. But you can't have a club that doesn't let women in. Now, there's a very much a stigma attached to that. And he was saying, well, where do men go? Because actually, you need to go and be crude and primal and not actually have emotional complexity. Sometimes you need to just make fun of each other and be a female and not feel sensitive.

Sometimes this is. You've just hit on a good one there. Why? Why? It's confusing for. For men because. So you can have a women's business network and men aren't allowed. But if you had a men's network and women aren't allowed, people take offense to that.

Yes.

And even one of my friends, you know, you could go down that whole route of. One of my friends said, who works in the city, who's an Asian guy? And he said, you know, there's Asian men's business networks or there's Asian, you know, networks. But if you said, you know, only white men can go to something, or, you know, once you start labeling people and doing that, I think it's a slippery slope. But we're unashamedly saying that the whole man academy isn't even for all men, because some men aren't Ready to, you know, they're quite happy with where they are in life. And we're looking for guys that want to, for want of a better word, live an epic life. So also, you can't appeal to everybody. You know, your life isn't about how many friends or how many people you can keep happy. So for us, primarily, we're guys in their 30s and 40s who are a bit bored of life and want a bit more excitement. And therefore, then you know who you're targeting, what language you use, what environment you're creating, what are their pain points, and hopefully solve their issues.

It's interesting, I know, because your founding co partner was a gay man and actually had a lot of gay men at your first events. What's the difference there with what they were telling you versus the heterosexual men in terms of their place in society? Did you feel the heterosexuals had more confusion, bizarrely now than the gay guys about what they should be doing?

It was an interesting mix, actually. And I think what we noticed most was that, unsurprisingly, you know, men are pretty similar and the same problems, you know, whether you had a partner who was male or female, you know, or you had guys who were coming in who had issues with business, issues with their body image, they were just a bit bored with life and wanted more adventure. Primarily it was everybody kind of. You looked around and were like, everybody's going through roughly the same issues. And one of the big things there was career. You know, a lot of people are doing a job that isn't really what they want to do, but it pays the bills and it, you know, they managed to keep up the life that society tells you you should be leading. And that's one of the big things we've seen over the. Well, what is it, you know, three, soon to be four years. Is that the guys getting in the trap of. And I saw it in the city, you know, professional men who are earning enough money or good money to live that life of having the car, the watch, the nice holidays, all the different things, and sending kids to private school, which are all good. But some of them were doing a job they didn't like to be able to keep that place.

And they could see, they could see the finish line of death, which were all hurtling towards and thinking, I haven't enjoyed every moment or I've not enjoyed that many moments.

And that's where you get into the levels of fulfillment. Because, you know, a great example there was a guy. I didn't work, he wasn't my Colleague, but he worked at the same company and he had a very big house in South London. He had two lovely cars, he had, you know, kids and a lovely wife and he had a great physique. You know, he kind of ticked all the boxes, but he didn't like his job. But for his wife, for him to say, let's say he was earning, you know, a six figure salary, easily a six figure salary, to say, I don't want to do this anymore, I want to go and do a job which is going to pay me half of that or even less. For her, the thought was saying, well, she might have to actually go to work instead of just going to yoga and having a Matcha latte down the, you know, down the high street and then, you know, in her Range Rover. He was stuck in that job because he had to earn enough money to make sure that they had the expensive cars and ticked all those boxes and he wasn't fulfilled. And that's the kind of guy that one day that, you know, we see it where they have a coping mechanism and that mechanism ends up being drink, drugs, porn, going out and having an affair, being violent. Any of the coping mechanisms that you have, or ultimately killing yourself, being 15 again, basically?

Yeah, it just sounds like not killing yourself, obviously, but yeah, so that was.

A great example of someone who on the, on the exterior is, is killing it, pardon the pun. And on inside they're actually not happy at all.

But that's a tension as well, isn't it? Because there's shifting sands. And part of the reason the whole man academy is important is because it's contemporary men with contemporary issues. And things have changed pretty rapidly socially, even since the 90s, since my dad was at prime earner and speaking to people. Actually, I'm going through this life story thing where I'm interviewing people from our family and my wife's family and how much clarity they had in their roles was, yes, you work 50, 60 hours, but you know that that's your role and you'll take the kids out the weekend and have fun. But there's no, you know, my mum famously says my dad never changed a nappy. He actually does all the cooking at home now, which is interesting. He loves cooking since he's sort of semi retired. But it's, it's a different, different world. And I wonder if that, that nuance is sometimes overpowering, isn't it? Now that what's expected in terms of childcare? How important is the whole man Academy to dads?

Yeah, I mean, this is One of the big things we started touching on being, you know, I've got two. Two boys who are basically two and four, so I'm a fairly new dad to it. And really it's been tough because on one of the. We do a monthly zoom call for the whole Man Academy, which is free for guys to join. And we've guys from all over the world, guys from Canada, got police officer from Canada, we've had guys from the States, you know, guys from all different backgrounds. But when we spoke about fatherhood, one of the chaps who lived in London said, and I agreed with him, that he felt under pressure when your child was born to say it was the happiest day of your life. And actually I said it was one of the most kind of stressful for me. Just because you're worried about your partner. We had family coming, you know, it was a home birth, so you're not near hospital actually is great, but you're still trying to juggle all these things. But his point was about when, when he came, became his father, he realized how selfish, beautifully selfish you could be before that, because you could do whatever you wanted. And then suddenly you've got this little, little being, little person that, you know is dependent on you 24 7. And you know, you know yourself. It's. It's a. It's a real change.

Yeah, virtuous things become semi selfish, don't they? So to go to the gym for two hours a day was seen as a virtue. Afterwards, it becomes self indulgent. And that's a huge change. I mean, that's one thing through life is that I think you had a brilliant podcast with David Gandhi on the whole Man Academy. I recommend people check that out because he's sort of a male sort of role model in this sort of world. Maybe void of them in the sense that he's an international superstar model and businessman, but he was talking about clarity. And I believe you work with the clients that you've worked with about the importance of knowing what you want, but the other part of that is that it changes throughout life, doesn't it? And that's actually murky when you become a dad, you're like, well, I want to spend time with a daughter or son, but I also need to provide. And I know that university is coming up in 15 years or whatever it is. So suddenly you've got those tensions. And that's. That's because when you're 20, 25, you're like, I've got to succeed in this job. And I'VE got to go to the gym and that's. It was a really simple world. And I can get a rotisserie chicken and some broccoli. I don't have to worry about cooking or cleaning and may we can pull on a cleaner who comes in once a week. I don't have to worry about that. I'm not interested in vacuuming or suddenly, yeah, suddenly become a dad and your husband to a woman you like all these things that they think about that you've never thought about because you've been tunnel visioned. Finding the clarity in that is complex.

You've hit the nail there because that's what, you know, talking to guys in their 30s and 40s and upwards, you know, a lot of them are now young dads or are thinking of starting a family. And it is so funny how you are so used to just doing whatever you want. And that was me on a Saturday I was usually hungover after being out with clients a week, you know, up in London I would get up, you know, 7ish. You'd go to the gym and you'd come home and watch Sky Sports and you'd know, maybe do a bit of cleaning or you do some ironing or do whatever it was you needed to and then you'd go out that night and that was it. And then Sunday you'd be hungover, go to play football and have a Sunday roast and the whole thing would start again. And now it's, you know, for the guys with the whole man academy, so many of them are like wow, you know, you've got taking kids to football, taking kids to classes, taking kids to swimming, doing this stuff, giving the mum a break as well.

Yeah.

One of the comedy ones here is our, my brother in law or on my partner's side, they've just had a baby, it's only, it's a week old today. And for the brother in law, I remember a conversation a few months ago where he loves golf and he's like, yeah, you know, I still play my golf on a Saturday. And I was like, you might want to check that with the partner because she's going to have been at home all week with this new baby, you know, not really seeing anybody and you're going to get home late from work and I'm pretty sure on a Saturday she's either going to want to have support from you or just give you the baby and say do you mind if I have some time?

Yeah.

And it was like yeah, good point.

And then you do need some.

Yeah.

Golf's a, Golf's a problem. I've never got into golf. It's a problematic one certainly to think of taking up now just because the time constraints. Much easier to play tennis for an hour or.

Yeah, tennis, you can do a 40 minute stint, but golf is, you know, three, four hours, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. But I think there is something to be said is that it's interesting because I did the Cheltenham Wellbeing Festival, which is organized by two women and primarily it was centered on a lot of female issues, but I hosted a couple of men's events. James Golden, AKA the Fitness Pro, is our mutual friend. He was there as a speaker on the physical fitness side and there was, there's a slogan that they used to publicize that event which was self care is not selfish. And I really thought about that was quite interesting because it's not a binary topic, it's a spectrum, isn't it? And actually self care was almost, you know, it could run on forever when you're, when you're single or when you're young adults without kids. But actually self care can become quite selfish. If you literally spend, you know, two hours in the morning working out, you know, three hours getting yourself spruced up before a night out and all, it just doesn't happen. So there is a. You need to do enough to feel yourself and to feel healthy, but you.

Can'T be the way as a parent. Also, you never get used to, or for the first few years of, you know, when you're single or you haven't got kids, you put on some smart clothes or, you know, a new T shirt or something and you go out for the day. But as soon as you have kids, you know, the amount of times you've got hummus on your shirt or they've dribbled on you, or when you pick them up and they're little, their shoes always rub on your right side. And after a while you realize just like, fuck it, I just.

You wear black, you wear a black T shirt. That's a good thing.

Yeah, you end up just going back to basics, basically, which is a bit like what I've gotten today. But you know what you said about David Gandhi as well? I mean, you know, he became our global ambassador a year and a half ago and that really propelled us forward because it gave us a bit more recognition and people took a bit more notice. And he'd mentioned the whole man academy in things like the Rob Report, which is a big luxury magazine. And we'd been in other Publications. But what the podcast, when I interviewed him, which has had like 20,000 views now was great that a lot of people mentioned that. You realize he is just a guy who loves cars, is interested in business, entrepreneurship, has got a little daughter and, you know, he's actually a normal guy. And often people forget when you see someone that's got a million followers on Instagram and has been on, I think he's been on more front covers than any man in the world. I don't know that for definite, but I'll put a bit of money on it.

What was cool about that was actually on that note of his ubiquitousness and how he's sort of a contradiction in the sense of a world where female supermodels dominate. He's the only male model we can sort of name. I've seen interviews with him talking about the Zoolander stigma and maybe that's part of it. But he, we assume as blokes, oh, he's, he's obviously supernaturally good looking and athletic. But actually what he said to you was, no, there's lots of good looking dudes out there. We don't see them every day because they're sort of, you know, above, above the ordinary. But he had a specific plan to become what he became because he could have just done catalog modeling or whatever. So it's not just that he wasn't so good looking that someone said, oh, we're going to put you on the COVID of every magazine. He had a specific plan, didn't he? And that plan is important, isn't it? And in the context of careers, is that plan ever shifting, do you think? Because you talked about Wholeman Academy and I just think with the nuance of life, it feels like to me that I had clarity in my 20s and early 30s. But as soon as you throw family into the mix, it's like, what are my objectives now for work? Because suddenly what your priorities, it shifts, doesn't it? Because actually weekend times important and etc. Etc.

It's the phases of life. And I'm trying to think which it was about a year ago. I can't remember who I spoke about on a. I was on a podcast, they spoke about the phases of life. And I said like we've covered in our 20s, you know, if you haven't got kids, for example, then you are maybe gym or nights out. And you know, for me it was doing curls for the girls. And that was the most important, that was the most important thing for me.

Work 18 hours or whatever it is. If you need to. Yeah.

And no one, you know, if I came home at five in the morning and had a shower, went back to work, no one's. You've got no one to answer. In my mid to late 30s, you started to think, I'm not sure if this is what I want. And now, you know, now I'm 43, you get to that stage where my priorities have changed completely. So yeah, I think phases, men go through phases. And I know guys in their 50s who have emailed me, had a really interesting one when we launched that online course, which is what, two weeks ago, we had a guy who's in his 50s and said, would the course be useful for me? Because he said, I know you talk about guys in their 30s and 40s, but I'm in my 50s, I'm lacking a bit of confidence. I guess you've got grown up kids and suddenly you're back to being you again as opposed to just dad all the time. And I was like, look, I said the course covers nutrition. You know what you're fueling yourself with mindset, morning routine, fitness, testosterone as well. And I was like, it applies to a 50 year old man as much as a 30 or 40. But a lot of people would be surprised that a 50 year old plus man would be emailing in saying, you know, I'm feeling like life's not quite what I want it to be.

One thing you cover with David Gandhi that I find fascinating is adversity. How important is adversity to development? Because there is a sense in society at the moment that we should be very comfortable, both talk about exercise and lack of it, sedentary lifestyle and just how any adversity is detrimental. Again, going back to the mental health debate, it's almost like, well, let's not put ourselves in situations. But David Gandhi was talking about hate messages that gets online and how he sort of chuckles at the people talking about his physical appearance. And clearly in a world where your physical appearance is paramount, it's interesting that he's developed that resilience. But you wonder if he's needed to be abused this many times to get there. And I know clearly there's a fine line and he's a grown, grown man, as he said, but how important is it to not shy away from adversity and deal with some of those things. And that's part of friendship in male circles, is you get battered, don't you? Your ego gets battered.

Yeah. Do you know what, actually, and you reminded me, I remember, I mean, quite a few years Ago we did an event was in 2019 with David Gandhi spoke at our, probably our biggest actual event. We had 65 guys in the room and geese and hawks allowed us to use their number one Savile Row HQ for an evening. Which is really cool. But I'm pretty sure it's during there where he said, you know, he's still on WhatsApp groups with his mates from Billericki where he grew up and of course they're always completely slaughtering him and it keeps your feet on the ground. But that's where we have to be careful these days, where people feel like they shouldn't have any adversity in their life. Well, actually generally you grow when you've got challenges. You know, if look at a football team, if you just win 5 nil every week, it's easy but you know, the odds, defeat now and again, I think even, I mean look at Premier League football. You know, an odd defeat now and again can shake you back to reality and say, you know, you've got to put the work in and you've got to stay focused and motivated and work hard and keep developing as opposed to just be like, oh, nothing should go wrong in life.

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, you talk about cold showers as well, don't you? That's a sort of sign of adversity in the morning. It's just to put yourself through a little bit of struggle. How important cold showers been to, to the whole academy.

That's been cool because I mean there's, you know, the guy Wim Hof, who's the expert and talks all about it. But what we try and do is give guys, you know, easy, simple, memorable things to implement to make kind of long term changes. And you know, it's a bit like you could say if you have one cigarette today, you're not going to die, but if you have a cigarette every day, it's going to have an accumulative effect. And it's the same with cold showers, what you're fueling yourself with, how you're sleeping, all those little things are that kind of those compound decisions. But cold showers has been an interesting one because we had on one of the weeks we did an E letter where we did a challenge and said, look, just, just have a go, you know, you don't have to walk into a cold shower, have your normal shower, put it on cold for 10, 20, 30 seconds a minute or however and see. And a couple of guys were like, wow, that really transformed my morning because I felt so Awake and other guys were like, beep, beep. You just, just can't do it.

It makes you present though, doesn't it? Your mind stops wandering, thinking about other things because you're literally in a sort of survival mindset, even though you're not. You're in your bathroom.

It's an early win. I always say that. And, and I admit myself, I've been having cold showers nearly every morning for. I know I can't remember now, a year and a half, two years or something, but I try and have excuses every morning for why I shouldn't have one. Yeah, you know, I'm running late. So it's, it's, you know, we all do it. Basically.

It's worse in the winter as well. It's a lot colder in the winter. Yes.

Yeah, and that's a good point. It depends where you are in the world because, you know, our coldest water level in this country is going to be a different temperature to. It is in other countries. So I know with Drew Broughton, who's the ex footballer, who. He came to one of our events, actually. He came to the David Gandy event. Fun enough. He came along with Simon Mundy. He was the guy that does the Don't Tell Me to Score podcast.

I used to work with Simon Mundy. Radio, Virgin Radio. He was on the Drive Time sport. I was on the morning sport.

Small world. Yeah, he. I know he spoke. I interviewed him for one of our events at South Place Hotel. But I remember those guys coming along and that's how I started following Drew Broughton. And I know he has some kind of like big iced tub in his garden and that I think is the next level. It's, you know, cold shower is quite, is quite tight compared to if you can have a proper full immersion, then you're, you know, then you're on the right track.

Also though, if you do have toddlers like you do, you can't, you know, your wife's probably go, what are you sitting in the tub for? For 20 minutes? Whereas a cold shower, everyone's allowed a shower, so it's facilitating it to your life, isn't it?

Because some of these things. Do you know, the last time I did the full cold water immersion, I was at Champney's, the, the health spa in. Was it in. I can't remember exactly where it is, but I remember then getting out of there and then Frank Bruno got in the sauna with me, which is an interesting story. So he, he got in. And when we talk about mental health, when I saw him get in the sauna. I mean also he's like what, six foot three. But considering, you know, his age, he's still in great shape. And you know, we spoke very briefly but about, you know, how good saunas are for you and how good cold water is and these things, you know, gives you the longevity. It's not just an early win, it's as you know yourself, it's, it's years down the line that will help you.

Extremes, the extremes are important. Yeah, it's just, yeah, it's figuring things like that, isn't it? It's just sort of the delicacies of life and is it to write things down, to figure out what you want, what you can achieve, what's realistic and on routines is important, isn't it? Because I do variable shift work and actually what do you guess? A lot of the help in the, I guess male dominated place is all about sort of obsessive physical routine. It's like, right, wake up at 5am every morning, do 30 minutes and do this and I'm like, well I've gone to bed at 2, I can't do that. It's like, because we mentioned sleep there, how important that is, you have to not follow that kind of total machismo of regulations. You end up ruining yourself. I suppose routines have to be realistic to your life.

I think it's flexible and you know, we, when I wrote the online course it was, it was all about realizing that, you know, there's no cookie cutter approach because we were trying to give any guy that, you know, goes through the six week course, which is basically six 20 minute videos so it's easily consumable. But remembering that we don't want to give a guy any reason to have an excuse to say, oh yeah, but I can't do that because I work shifts or I've got kids or whatever. And that was the thing we were very much about. You start your day the right way so it doesn't matter what time you are aren't getting up. So there's no, you've got to be in the 5:00am Club, which, you know, it work is brilliant but for some people it just doesn't. It's not.

You have to get to bed at nine if you're going to get up at five, don't you really?

And that's the thing, if you say if you're working late or something and then saying you've got to get up at 5, then actually you've missed out on some good quality sleep. But the talks I do for companies now, I spoke at Spotify and Credit Suisse and all these different kind of companies, is about a morning routine and it's all about calling it like the one day reset. So even if you get it wrong yesterday and you forget all about it, you don't just write it off and say, well, I'm not bothering you say, right, today's a fresh block of 24 hours. How can I start the day the right way? And that is by our thing of move, breathe, think and drink, which we go into. But like you said, if you're on shift work, people can't tell you to get up at X time because you're like, I'm absolutely shattered.

Yeah. The life transition you mentioned, that's a common theme in terms of maybe getting something that's been materially fruitful. But you realize that life has changed and you've changed, you want to do something else. How important is clarity and focus? Because we have a lot of choices now, don't we, in terms of businesses or ventures we can go into? And I find myself, I dabble in lots of different things outside of my main job. But you sort of almost need to focus on one thing. Do you? Or is that, is it a juggling act?

Yeah, I think it's. I mean, we're always going to have in life, you know, you've got to balance your, let's call it health, wealth, love and happiness. So imagine those as legs of a table. If you take one of those away, then you know, everything's going to fall down. But I think, although it's a juggling act, if, if you're kind of trundling along your life and everything's all good, then quite frankly, do you need to spend a long time focusing on what you really want? Because maybe like, well, I've kind of got it. But if there is something that's missing in your life and you're lacking a bit of excitement or you want to, we call it go on your own hero's journey, then that is the time to focus on what you want. And it's funny when people say, I'm going to travel abroad to find myself, and you're like, I see that as procrastination, you know, 10 minutes in a.

Room and write it down, have a.

Look in the mirror, you're there all the time. So I do think with guys, a lot of them never look at school. Do you get asked, you know, what do you want to be in life? I don't think we're taught to kind of delve too deeply into our own mindset, to look at what will make.

Us fulfilled, basically, and how important we're going to go. So you got hard out, but how important to determine what's situational and what's personality based as well, because some of us have that restless personality where we can get bored of a situation, want to do something else, but actually think that maybe the problem is me, not what I'm doing and I don't have chase a new career. I could actually just, I don't know, try and calm down, meditate, whatever.

Yeah, there's. There's that shiny object syndrome, which is. It's a bit like with online courses, a lot of people, and I did it myself, I'd spent six grand on a course a few years ago, didn't hardly do any of the course at all because I then saw something else that I thought was good. But I'll give you a good example of that. I'm in a mastermind group with six or seven professional guys who all got really good online businesses, which I think is one of the high levels of achievement because they did all the hard work to start with and when they've got the right processes, they don't have to work very much and they can do stuff they enjoy. But one of the guys that sat in the mastermind with us, you could tell there was something not quite right with him. He was like, yeah, we've turned over, I think it was half a million in online sales in two years or something like that. So doing really well but not quite feeling things. Maybe I should launch a new product or, you know, scale it bigger. And we could all see that his physiology wasn't quite right. And we were like, what, what are you doing outside of, of your online business? And he was like, oh, well, I've actually started doing trial running and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, wow. You could see the energy come out and his eyes lit up and we all sat there and let him finish and then said, listen, it's not going to make you hard to launch a new product, like an extra ten grand in the bank. Big deal. You know, if you don't need the money now, don't worry if you've got no money, ten grand's big. But if he's already churning good money, so what it's some more. We were like, do more of what you love outside of this. And of course then he's like, right, I've signed up to 100 mile race and a this and that and he's focused on that and you're like, there you go. Sometimes you need people around you to step back from where you are and just kind of reflect back what you've just said and make you go, oh yeah, because he could have hired a team, gone bigger, scout this, tried things out, etc etc and actually all you need to do was do more of the fun stuff.

We touched on the philosophical and the sort of spiritual I suppose and what often's attention has been in my marriage until I got illuminated and spoke to other men was what when women ask give you problems, they don't want solutions. Men often do though. So beyond the sort of general philosophy, have you got any hard and fast tips that work on a daily basis for you? For men out there?

Yeah, I think is one is a simple one which is have a morning routine. You know, have something that's, that's what I do the talks for companies about now and especially because. And we haven't touched this but the working from home, you know, I'm trying to think what the stats were but at some point last year it was something like 60% of people were working from home or that 60% would carry on working from home. Now there are benefits to that and there are some drawbacks, but I think one of the big things is you get out of your routine because for a lot of, let's say professional men, your routine was get up at X time. You probably have to catch a train or be in work at this time. Maybe you went to the gym beforehand, you had some time away from home to kind of get in the right headspace, especially if you're getting a train and stuff. Whereas now you get out of bed and a lot of guys can go in their pajamas.

Yeah.

And there's no break in between. Plus you miss on the social side, you know, don't move.

Yeah. Either.

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's a real. I struggle when people say, oh, working from home's great. And you're like, yeah, it depends. Because if you're a guy in your 20s or 30s, I still think you should be going out and interacting and not sitting in a box room. So you know, I think that's one of the biggest is have some kind of a morning routine to just help whatever you're trying to do in life, help you get started. The other one, and this is in the course which we cover but I'll drop this is doing a brain dump. So you write down everything you need to do, you know, literally emotionally vomit all this stuff out on a bit of paper and then arrange it into lists so it gets out of your head. And there's a great saying, your head is for having ideas, not for holding them.

Yeah. So rather than writing a simple list of like buy some cornflakes or whatever, you write everything that's short term, long term in your mind. Yeah. Especially now because especially doing things like podcasts. You're always thinking, oh, I'll text that guy. And it's revolving around your head, isn't it?

Constantly that sort of stuff. There's always something else to do. And I always joke and say if, you know, for us at home, you have to remember to take time to quieten your mind as well because we can be busy all the time or looking at social media or consuming, you know, the, the media that around the moment just wants to show you fear all the time and it is detrimental to your health. So switching off phone, switching off the news, you know, going out in nature, crazy thinking. But you know, leaving your phone at home is one of those big things. So yeah, I'd say morning routine is important. Do a brain dump and try your best to switch off from technology and go out into nature.

Yeah. The mobile phone, such a double edged sword, isn't it? Such a sort of facilitator, but also just a constant burden. And so, yeah, hamstring for, for creativity and thinking as well because it's just.

Oh, it's a rabbit hole that we all know you can, you know, that's why the screen time thing that I get the report on is good because sometimes you look. And now I use it for watching stuff as well as working. So you're not just sitting there scrolling. But you know, it's probably on average about three hours a day I spend on my phone.

Yeah.

And you're like, when you think over the course of a year, you're like, whoa, that's. Even if I'm working or not, that's not good.

I don't know how to think after I've looked at my phone as well. Well, actually great to, great to have you on the podcast. Really appreciate it. For men out there who are interested to find out more. Do you do individual coaching still as Anthony Asprey, or is it all done through the whole mad academy as a general.

Yeah. So it's a good question because what we actually wrote about in our latest E letter was the fact that, you know, three years ago we had nothing and then we started doing our events in London, which of course they had to be put on hold due to the lockdowns, which we're hoping to kind of restart. But we then started the podcast and we always say it's like a funnel of the podcast is obviously free to listen to, but also we have a weekly E letter that goes out to hundreds of men around the world now, which you basically just go to the website, sign up, you get an excellent brainstorming process to help you consider what you want in life as well. And then kind of our next step up is then you've got the online course, which is basically $97. Then your next step up is coaching with me if you want. And the ultimate one is we invite guys to come to my house in the Cotswolds for three days to take a deep dive into morning routine, what they want in life, focus fulfillment. And then we kind of release them back into the wild, fully focused on what they want, looking after 2 year.

Old and 4 year old.

It's basically a break for me, for the kids. That's my excuse. So it's about giving guys options because some guys have got different budgets as well.

Yes.

But you know, we know that, you know, there's, there's, there's desire for all of those things. And it's a bit like a guy might start with the podcast, then start reading E letter, then he buys the course and works on that. Then he might be like, yeah, do you know what, I'm going to take it a step further and go to coaching. And then the ultimate one is come and actually do a deep dive for three days. And so it's always good to have options in life.

Cotswold's Tony Robbins. I love it.

Exactly. Yeah.

Get those hot coals fired up in the.

We need to get some assurance for that.

But yes. Yeah, that's true, that's true. No, I love it. It's nice to have a pragmatic advice and I think it is a really timely one as well with the shifting roles of men in society and challenges. But yeah, I think for me as well, just spending time with, as you said there in real life with men, when the whole man academy events are back in full swing, is fantastic on the podcast, YouTube, but is it also going to be on itunes, audio only and things like that?

Yeah. So the website is wholemanacademy.com and that's got all the links, but our podcast is on Spotify, on itunes, on anchor stitcher. Christ, there's so many. But, but we also do them all as a YouTube channel, so that a lot people like to consume in different ways. I like to watch things other people listen. So at least there's different options for guys. And, you know, feel free to subscribe or reach out to me and ask any more questions.

Yeah, I'm subscribed to your audio. I'm actually a big, big audio person because I drive a lot and I like when I'm cooking as well. It's like a passive, a passive medium rather than having to watch it. So, yeah, I don't know, but it's, it's, it's good to have both options, for sure. And thanks for coming on the podcast. Appreciate it.

Pleasure.