EP094 - WHAT ARE YOU LEAVING ON THE SHELF? - ANTHONY ASTBURY | WHOLE MAN ACADEMY

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Are you ready? Okay. This is the Whole Man Academy podcast, episode 94. It is a solo pod today. So if you're sitting there thinking, where's his guest? He ain't coming because it's just me. And we've got a shed load to go through. So we've got about literally 10 points to try and cover for you brothers to tick off of our list of important stuff you might need to know, need to think about who maybe to help you do life better and live epic. So yeah, episode 94, we're racing up to 100, we've got a couple of great guests lined up and we're looking or talking to guys in the world of motorsport, more to do with men's health and fitness guys out in the States. And again, we're trying to expand our kind of network of thinking by talking to guys all around the world. But anyway, first of all, for those who haven't realized, on the E letter next Wednesday, which will be Wednesday the 16th, is our the return of our Zoom events. And that will be on Wednesday, 7 o' clock UK time, 7pm, not 7am even. I'm not doing 7am one. And if you want to get involved in that, the link will be sent out on the E letter. So the E letter, if you haven't subscribed already, the link will be in the show notes below or in the comments. And all you need to do is sign up the letter and the link will be in there. And it's a pretty relaxed chat between sometimes a few, sometimes 10, 14, 15 guys all around the world. And we've had chats from, you know, from Canada, we've had guys from India, we've had guys from the States, we've had guys from all sorts of places that jump on. So you never know what you're going to learn or who you're going to meet. So yeah, Zoom Wednesday the 16th, come and join us if you want to. And then next one will be in probably about six weeks after that. So plenty of opportunities. Okay, number two, our last podcast, we did with Joe Rodonis. I actually put on our Instagram reels about people asking questions for the guests. So we're going to do that on every single one from now on because, you know, I can only think of the questions that I can think of and some other ones can come up with stuff where you go, oh, yeah, that's a good question. So even if you don't follow us on Instagram, feel free to jump on there and we'll be announcing what guests we're about to interview. And as we did on the last one, we had a guy also called Joe. There's a lot of Joe's around, who we asked a couple of the questions to our podcast guest and he got them answered and then he mentioned them on Instagram. So also, if there's a guest that we featured before and you've got a question, either reach out to them on their social media channels, tell them you watch the podcast and you've got some questions, or just hit me up and I will send it for you. So happy to make a connection. Okay, number three. That's one and two. Done. Number three. On Tuesday of this week, we did our first full day's mentoring with a guy who was one of the first to sign up for a mentoring program. A whole man mentorship. And why do we do a whole day? Because I actually wrote in the E letter, one of the big things is when you sit down with someone just for one hour or something like that, often people are kind of, you know, not being fully honest and haven't fully relaxed. So we were together for like seven or eight hours. We had an hour's walk, talk, we had lunch. We sat in a lovely hotel. We sat in an organic juice bar, mixed it up a little bit, and went through pretty much everything that he wants to do with his life and gave him an action plan for where he is going. Now, here's an interesting thing. One of the big things we kind of discussed was with what he's trying to achieve, was he hiding? Which is an interesting one. I mean, ask yourself in life, are you hiding? You know, are you trying to achieve something but you're not really putting yourself out there? Not kind of telling everybody what your goal is or working towards it. So it was an interesting one for him. And he actually sent me an email the next day day and I'll just read a few bits of it. He said, I am buzzing, lots to think about. But more importantly, I feel like a man with a much clearer plan ahead. And that's thanks to you lovely stuff. Then he said, honestly, thank you so much for yesterday. It means a hell of a lot. Now this is the important bit. He said, right, I'm off to do. And that was the big thing for many of the guys we speak to. It's the accountability. It's like, right, I want to do all this cool stuff, I've got these ideas, but I don't formulate a particular plan. And then I've got no one to kind of, you know, give me a kick in the ass if I haven't bothered to do it. So what we're doing him is making sure every week for the next six months he's got a clear plan of what are the two to three things he must do that week, who he's going to reach out to, what he's going to try and achieve, getting out of his comfort zone. And then I expect him to report back into me every week as well to help with accountability. So we'll see how that goes. Hopefully he's going to make some great progress. Okay, number four on our list was, and this is from a podcast I was listening to the other day and they were discussing how many of us, me included, have bought books on personal development or anything else that you're looking to kind of learn about and we don't read them. And I remember someone, I think it was Gav Gillibrand, whose podcast I was on about two years ago, showed me the saying of shelf development instead of self development, which I liked because I looked the other day, we were rearranging our office and I RECKON I found eight books. I think it was eight or nine, or was it maybe even 10, that I've bought and have never even read. And who knows what life changing chisel could be in those books and they're sitting on the shelf gathering dust and doing nothing, even though I paid good money for them. So I picked one of those books and I'm actually in the process, I'm a couple of chapters in. But I wondered, for you guys out there, wherever you are, is there a book or are there books that you look at and you're like, do you know what? I keep buying books with the intention to read them and then I'll never do anything because that information could be priceless. So for you, I would say, if there is, promise yourself you're not buying any more books, you're not doing any more courses, not doing anything else until you've picked those books, put them in order of how you're going to read them, and Then sit down and dedicate some time to actually read them. And even if it's just going to work on the train or overnight or one chapter a day, which could just be a couple of minutes, but you'd be surprised how quickly you can burn through these books, soak up some information and hopefully put it into practice because that's the main thing. There's no point in reading this stuff and going, yeah, that's really life changing. I'm not doing anything about it. So as Peter Sage said, knowing not doing is the same as not knowing which might be one you could sit and have a think about. So yeah, number four was go and read that book. And again, that that might be something else. You can replace book with something else that you need to be doing that you've paid for, that you haven't actually taken action on, following on from that. One of the big things was the amount of people that spend so much time of an evening. And I get it, people are tired and people have maybe been working hard, etc. But they're just sitting, watching TV every night or just scrolling on their phones and we've all done it. I still find myself doing it sometimes. And what I've been implementing recently was again something I heard from a guy probably 2 months ago on a podcast about what about if you could devote one night a week to your own personal development. So let's say I would pick maybe a Wednesday and you'd say, okay, tonight I'm not watching any tv, I'm not watching any screens at all. Is it going to be that I'm going to read that book that I talked about? Or is it that I can do 10 minutes of meditation and some journaling and just maybe put a few goals down for the year? Hasn't got to be kind of this whole huge brainstorming process, but just spending maybe that evening, just two hours maybe on your own personal development, ideally with no screens, just because that could help you go to sleep easier and sleep better that evening and then the next day you will see the benefits because you'll slept better, you'll have more energy and hopefully you'll be in a better mindset. So if you can devote one night a week to personal development and if you decide on that week or you take some action, send me an email, anthonyolemountacademy.com and let me know, let me know what you decided to do or you didn't do, or your wins or your failures. I'm always interested to hear every guy's journey of personal development. So that was number five. Devote one night a week to personal development. Number six. Now, this goes back two weeks. I was invited down to the Warrior Day, which is down in East Sussex with Rick Cooper, who was a previous podcast guest. Really love Rick. He's no nonsense. Guy doesn't fuck about. He is not scared to call people out if they're not doing any work. And he and I found a real good connection and we discussed about working together later in 2022, which we'll come on to. But one of the big things for that event was in the last kind of 40, 50 minutes, we did a team workout. And I've said to several people, I have not pushed myself that hard, I reckon, for five years. Why not? Because I haven't had any real competition. I stopped doing obstacle course races. I haven't been playing football. I've been just doing my own solo gym work. And I don't think you can push yourself as hard yourself as you can when you've got competition and people coming over and basically shouting in your face saying, you can do one more or ten more to go or something. So here's my question for you. When was the last time you really pushed yourself? And I either mean mentally or physically, getting out of your comfort zone. I realized for a lot of guys, a lot of them had this big thing of, you know, like signing up for a race or an endurance event or something, or even if it's a new course, what is that one thing that you could do that just means that you're pushing yourself a bit harder. And for me, it's physically. I mean, I aped. I'll happily say I ate for three or four days, probably four or five days after, because I exercised so hard in such short bursts of intense activity that my body was shocked. But it felt so good in the next few days after. So again, when do you push yourself? Is there something that you can sign up to? Who knows? Okay, just start something. Number seven on our list. So that was Warrior Day. Ticked off. Number seven was about bespoke nutrition. I've put on the bottom of our E letter that coming soon, we will have bespoke nutrition consultations for men. I will be writing more about that in the E letter in the next couple of weeks. If you're more interested in that and you want to get started, just let me know. There will be packages and. Or there will be one off nutrition consultations. Not with me, because I'm not a qualified nutritionist. I just know a lot about it. But you will have a naturopathic nutritionist to help you. So let me know if that's something you're interested in. That was eight on the list. Here's a big one. Depends on when you're listening to this podcast. But today we've got what, four or five days left until it is Valentine's Day. Now, some of you might not give a shit about that, or if you haven't got a partner, you probably don't give a monkeys. But if you have got a partner, this is my little reminder. That was it. 14th is on Monday. Try and remember to get something because we all know, and I did it in the past where I left it late, got some shit present or nothing at all that was particularly useful. And then I paid the price in various ways, either with an argument or a girlfriend being pissed off or withholding affection, who knows where it could lead to? So just for some simple thing of, you know what, I'm going to go out and make a little bit of effort. It doesn't have to be something expensive, it could be something really thoughtful, but for fuck's sake, do something. And that reminds me to make sure I do as well. So that was number nine, Valentine's Day. If you don't care about it, doesn't matter, but maybe your partner does. So something to think about. Okay, number 10 on the list, this is the last one for us, is when are you creating some space for yourself? And I've been thinking a lot more about this in the last six months or maybe last year where I would be. It's easy to be working a lot and be busy because you've got kids or you've got job and you've got stuff to do and you've got partner and blah, blah, blah. But I realized that not often was actually creating that space apart from my morning routine for me and me alone. Which is why at some point we'll be launching retreats in the UK or at least one a year to give guys that opportunity. But even if it's just once a day or once a week, can you be like, do you know what, for that hour I am just doing something completely for me. Not sitting, watching football necessarily or doing something like that, but just could you be meditating, journaling, doing something that means that you're. It's not screen based, but you are doing it to help your mindset basically and hopefully calm your mind because I know, look, so many guys are very, very busy and their minds are racing. You could say like 100 miles an hour and how can we bring that down a level or two? So that's our 10 points. Reach out to me with any questions or any of the above. Again, email is anthonyoleman academy.com if you're interested in the mentorship program that will be a link in the bio. You can get started within probably two weeks and we've got a select few spaces because we've got we want to make sure that the guys that get involved in mentorship get full on help and we're not kind of trying to spread ourselves too thinly to make sure they get shit done and achieve what they want to do. Lastly, if you want to sign up to the E letter and you haven't already, again the link will be in the show notes and that is us done. Next week we'll be back with another belting podcast for guys who want to live an epic life. Right, I'm out of here. Catch you soon brothers.

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