EP107 - DAVID VAUX - STRENGTH OF LIFESTYLE | WHOLE MAN ACADEMY

Okay, guys, before we kick off the podcast this week, a couple of quick announcements that we're putting on our, I guess we put on our E letter, we put it on Instagram or what have you, but a few changes. After I went to the Mastermind event down in. Down in the south coast of the UK yesterday, which was what bloody day is it today? I don't even know. Tuesday. That was the one. And we spent some time talking about how we can optimize things with the whole Man Academy. And one of them was probably to do with being more focused on exactly what the whole Man Academy is. So what we wanting to understand was exactly where we were targeting our content. You know, what were we concentrating on? So we came up the three things, which is strength of your mind, body and soul, the health of your finances, relationships in your community and your confidence, your purpose, your actions and your path in life. So the strength, health and confidence. So all of our content will begin to be if it already has been. But you know, we focus very much on those areas, so we'll be publishing more about it. I'd love to get your thoughts on what we've missed out, what you think the three things we focus on, the strength, health and confidence. And the other thing is we're going to swap to podcasts. Instead of being every week are going to be every two weeks. So that gives a little bit more time to find epic guests, to make sure the content is great, to get it edited, get it out to provide value for the guys that listen all around the world and also takes a little bit of workload off whilst we focus on some other aspects of the whole Man Academy. So podcast every two weeks, still going to be on Friday, so you still get your Friday pump of excitement for the whole Man Academy stuff. And again it be strength, health, confidence and everything else that we can think of in between that ties those things together. Anyway, that should be it for now. And again, as always, say please. Like this video if you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening, remember to subscribe to our podcast Ola to make sure you don't miss out. And what was the last thing, of course is subscribe to our E letter goes out to men all around the world and it is wholemanacademy.com movement. And the other point there is you get an awesome free download, which is a really cool brainstorming process to help you kind of reinvigorate yourself. If you've ever had those times, you're like man, feeling a bit meh at the moment anyway. Right, let's jump in.

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Okay, so this is the Whole Man Academy podcast, episode 107. My guest today is David Vo. Now I'm going to check if I pronounce his name right because usually I cock it up. Is that even close?

That's spot on, mate.

Good, that's a win for me. It's a feather in my cap. Well, David is second generation firefighter in the London Fire Brigade. He was a recruit physical training and fire training instructor. We're going to get onto that. He's now osteopath with a special interest in strength and movement, which is super important for us, especially for the guys listening around the world who are interested in optimising their life, their body and their movement. He's also founder of the Move to Improve method. We're going to talk about that. Also going to get onto risk, pain, fitness, marathon rowing, toxic workplaces, leadership, reinvention and fatherhood if we have time. No promises. So we're not short of content, David. Let's, let's put it that way. So how are you and where are you, mate?

Thanks, Anthony. I'm very well, thank you. I'm in sunny Kent, which I know you're familiar with, been here about two years now, which is a really lovely spot. So, yeah, all is well and the sun is shining, so not going to complain.

That's, that's the one. I mean, for us, you know, guys that are living in the UK understand what our weather's like. It seemed like a very long winter, so there's no complaints. Apart from that our water butts were already dry, you know, after a couple of days. But even at lunchtime, I think I said before we started recording, I managed to take about an hour where I had lunch, sitting in the sun and then I did some exercise in the sun, you know, with your feet on the grass. So it was, it was lovely. Well, I was going to one of the questions I often ask guys, I tell them who we're going to have on the podcast and I kind of either on Instagram or I send a few guys kind of messages saying any questions? And one of them was a good one, which is when was the last time you really pushed yourself?

So let's start with that in terms of training or in any aspect.

I guess any aspect he's probably looking at. When I said that you had an elite level of fitness, it was like as we get older. When was last time I pushed myself? Good question. I know, I know what it was. I was down in East Sussex at a warrior day and I nearly died.

But I mean, I did okay.

So what about you?

I think it's all relative at the moment. I'm actually into kind of. So one of the reasons I contacted you is that I was looking to kind of connect and get my message out to people who are interested in performance, you know, be that physical or know, professional or emotional. But certainly people who are in their 30s, 40s, 50s, because performance ebbs and flows, has seasons, doesn't it? And I think for me, you know, I was performing at a very high level as what's been called now a tactical athlete. I'm not sure if I, I don't know how I feel about that, but certainly wasn't cool. You just, you know, you're a fire rescue and that was it. But that was a high level. I was a high level rower. And then for the last kind of 20. Yeah, the last 20 years, I've maintained a really good level of fitness even within the parameters of having persistent pain, neuropathic pain and injury. In terms of pushing myself physically, relatively speaking, you know, I went to visit my son who lives in, in Wales over the weekend and push myself quite hard there actually. And I was kind of leading the way. And he's 18 and fit as a butcher's dog. And I was, you know, ego took over and I pushed it. You know, we were like grinding uphill for two hours and I felt it the next day on the drive home. I was so stiff, you know, I think, wow, okay, that's interesting.

Yeah.

But I think in those circumstances you're always going to be. Because there is nowhere to hide to get from A to B. No one's gonna do it for you in those circumstances. And I, you know, so I enjoy occasionally testing myself like that. I think it's important to have the reserves to be able to do that kind of thing if you don't live in the hills, etc. Yeah, I think today is a interesting one, isn't it? Because, you know, you reached out to me a Few days ago. We've obviously spoken, but, you know, this came up and it would have been quite. Because I was in London today, it would have been quite tempting to say, oh, you know, a few weeks, Anthony, I know, you know, I'd love to do it, but, you know, I'm not sure I'm available. But I thought, no, actually I push myself. You know, let's do it. It's an opportunity. Let's see where the cards, where the cards fall.

You know, that's one of the big things. I mean, yesterday I was at a Mastermind event for men down in. Down in Winchester. And, you know, the travel time, I would say this is the problem with people working from home now, is that maybe they don't get that break from, you know, that travel time where you get time to sit and think. And for me, it was that I knew the question the guide asked about when was the last time you pushed yourself? And that for me was a couple of months ago, where I went to a warrior day, as we called it, and at the end did a workout session. And you know why? Because I had competition. Suddenly I found a new level. Whereas I bet if I'd have been on my own working out, you'd have said, oh, that's enough. You know, I'm too tired. I can't do anymore. But when you've got someone, you know, either running behind you or closing you down or something, it makes a big difference. And I think that's important to push yourself, you know, to challenge yourself sometimes to see where your limit is.

But.

But let's flip back to many years ago, when you were a. Or when you started as a firefighter. So tell us firstly why you became a firefighter and what it was like kind of getting, you know, into that life. Because that is one hell of a life to lead. Because there is, you know, a large amount of risk involved as well.

I applied when I was 17. I left school, did some various kind of outdoorsy type jobs. Wasn't classically academic. I was later diagnosed later, much later, in my mid-20s, with dyslexia. So I found it quite difficult. And there was a good reason why. I mean, I came back to academics later. But, you know, knowing what the challenges were, I was able to formulate a plan to succeed in that world. But at 17, I didn't have any of that. So I was kind of quite interested in either the emergency services or the forces. I applied for several. The fire service wrote back. First, there was a. I mean, I kind of grew up around fire stations. My father was stationed in southeast London. He did 30 years and retired. And so I was kind of quite familiar with the types of people that would be his friends and the types of people would come to our house and I'd go to the station and there was a certain smell to it, a certain familiarity to it. And so when I applied, I thought, yeah, this will be, this is me. This would be good. You know, it's kind of, I'm tailor made for this. And actually, so my application was accepted and I joined, you know, a few days after my 18th birthday. And the hardest six months of my life, man. The hardest six months of my life. Because I was 18, I was immature physically, and I mean, I wasn't mature. You know, we have to get to our 20s and into our 30s to really kind of gain that strength and, and maturity and stamina. That I think takes, takes. If you have built stamina from scratch, it kind of takes 18 months, two years to get to a point where you can perform. I think you have to put all those pathways in. So I had six months, and I did have youth on my side, but I was, you know, my first day training school was scary because, you know, I was the youngest by six, seven years.

All right, that's big.

I was surrounded by ex military types, mature guys, some of them ex special forces, who had rotated out of that and decided to become firefighters. And it was a steep learning curve, man. I mean, it was, you know, I didn't, I didn't realize until that day. And then, you know, six months in, I was still struggling, you know, physically still struggling. And it was a real leveler because it's a meritocracy in the fire service. You know, everyone has to go in at that level. Yeah, everyone starts at that level. And you have to work your way up if you want to work your way up. So there's a real understanding of every element of the job. And it's a very physical job. There's a lot of skill to master in terms of equipment, you know, in terms of all the things we have to know about construction and pumps and rescue equipment and the basics of just, you know, your own ability to wear breathing apparatus and steep learning curve. And it was pointed out to me very quickly on day one by my chief instructor, who's. He's a bit of a legend, really. It was like meeting someone with special, special powers, you know, he was 45. His name was Dave Smith. He's a station officer. And he was a rock star, man, because you Know, he used to be able to run a marathon under three hours and bench press £300. And his party trick was going hand over hand with his, with his body out, like almost like in a. In a plank, hand over hand up a pole in a fire station. And I'm just like a lot of the other guys who are very fit looked at him. Who is this guy? He was our instructor and he's the one who set the levels. You know, he's the one who actually set the parameters for what he felt was he wouldn't let you pass out unless he felt. Unless he would want to work with you himself.

Yeah.

You know, and that's, that's the whole thing. That was the beauty of it in those days in that people rotating into training generally had that mindset that I'm gonna be here a couple of years, then I'm gonna rotate back out and you're gonna be on the station probably I'm in charge of, and I want you to be as good as you can be. So it was very much protecting oneself, but it was a high standard, you know, it was very, very formal, very militaristic, and it was six months of hell. I mean, literally, I think I enjoyed the last week of it when I knew I'd passed everything and I was going to get out there. But then you.

What did your father think of you going into 5 service? Was he happy about it or. I mean, I guess he'd done 30 years, so he knew what, what you were going into, but a good question.

He was mixed. He was mixed because he knows the reality. He couldn't protect me from the reality because he had protected me from the reality. He didn't tell his son the stuff that he'd seen and had to do and their life near death rescues and when it went wrong and all the PTSD that back in those days, there's no support with.

Yes.

So he was proud of me, I know that, as was the rest of my family. But he was quite mute on the subject. He kind of said, well, you know, it's on you.

Yeah.

Which is interesting because, you know, I've got a son, I've got two sons, one oldest son, a younger son. George is 18. And George is really interested in maybe even doing some kind of retained fire service stuff. I think he wants to go to uni and he will probably, but I don't want him to. I don't want him to. It's a funny one. I'll be proud of him. But similar to my father, I would be thinking, I know the reality. People think it's glamorous, it's a great job and it's a privilege to serve people like that. It truly is. And it's a privilege to experience some of the things you experience, literally birth and death, often if you're on the front line. But yeah, I wouldn't want him. I wouldn't want him doing it at this age. I think if he said when he was 25, dad, I'm 25 now and I want to experience it, then I'd say, okay, mate. Well, you probably, you're mature enough now.

That's exactly what I was going to say was if it was in five years time where maybe he'd, you know, lived a bit more and seen how the world could be different. Well, I wonder. I was going to ask you also about. Because, you know, I've interviewed now we're up to, you know, over 100 different men. You know, a few of them have been Special Forces and things like that, where, you know, there's a risk to life daily if you're out, you know, on the, let's call it the front line, et cetera, et cetera. And I just want to view, because when I've interviewed guys in the Special Forces, when they joined young, they said they haven't even crossed their mind about the fact that you might, basically, you might pay the ultimate price for your job. And I wondered for yourself, because, you know, was there a that thought in the back of your mind? And also, did you ever have a time where you actually feared for your life in the job? Because I guess you're only one mistake or someone else's mistake away from a serious incident.

Yeah, that's a great question. I think you, you, I think to get through the training and to prepare yourself for the realities of it, I think it's kind of there. There's an implicit risk to it and I think we're all aware of it, but it's not really spoken during training. We train hard and there's a reason why we train hard because your life depends on it. It's kind of. It's kind of the relationship is spelled out, but in that regard. But you don't really go into. I didn't personally go into thinking about, oh, God, what if I, you know, go off that ladder and slip? Or what if there's an explosion or the ceiling caves in? I don't think it's until you've had a few near misses that you start to think about it. I had near Miss. On my first night duty. Yeah, it was my first night duty and had, you know, a very odd shout to a young man who was quite distressed. He was threatening to jump off of Chelsea Bridge, right. And he was up on the central column and the station officer turned to a guy called Tim, who was a climber and said, tim, you're a climber. Get up on the turntable ladder and then inch across and she's even speed getting down.

Great.

And Tim turned to me and said, you're quite. Yeah, you know, you're the new guy. Come with me. This would be good experience, but in those days, mate, I mean, we're talking about an old iron, wrought iron bridge which has been painted over hundreds of years. And even the big bolts, you'd think you can grab a hold of, adjust kind of, there's nothing there. Big gloves on and big rubber kind of wedged boots on which gave zero grip.

Yes.

You've got.

We're literally edging out onto 100 foot above the Thames at one in the morning. There's all coppers down there and fire service and. And there's this young man who's really distressed and he's got a noose around his neck and he's going to jump. And Tim says to me, we're about two yards from him and Tim turns to me and we're literally kind of like this, trying to. Kind of trying to. I'm desperately trying to find some purchase. And he turns to me and said, dave, I'm offering a cigarette. Take an undergrip on my belt and hold on to the there. So I was like, there under grip onto Tim. And Tim started to edge across to this guy holding a cigarette as an offering. And at that point everyone stopped and looked because it was precarious.

Yeah.

If we'd have come off then we would have both fallen 100 foot into the River Thames and I don't think we would have come up.

Yeah.

And I had that decision to make that I was kind of very aware as he offered in the cigarette that this could go badly wrong. And what he hadn't told anyone is going to grab him when he gets near enough. And that's what he did. And as he got within hand distance, the guy took the cigarette and Tim grabbed him by the wrist. And there was this moment where everyone just froze.

Yeah.

He looked at Tim, Tim looked at him. And it was a decision this young man had to make. Is he gonna go for it or. Actually, Tim called his bluff. Are you gonna come back with us? And he decided to come back with us. But for a second or so I was frozen in time thinking, if Tim goes with this guy because he'll go with him, I'm going to. Or do I let go of Tim and hold on? So it's one of those real strange juxtapositions because I don't want to die. But I decided that I didn't. I decided I'm going. I'm gonna try my best. I'm not gonna let go. I'm gonna try my best to hold Tim, but. Which means I'm going in. There's nothing to purchase, man. And that was my first night duty.

Wow.

And then we climbed back down the ladder with this young man. He got nicked, which is terrible. Really should have been given.

Nice.

Yeah, he got like really roughly handled and nicked and stuff. I mean, you know, I'm not judging. The police had a really tough job. But I just thought, you know, he needs psychological support. I hope they took him to hospital anyway. Yeah, we just went back to the fire station, made a cup of tea and no one really talked about it. And I was sitting there, you know, my eyes like that, thinking. And I hadn't actually thought about it that much until. You're out.

Yeah.

Because I think that's a survival mechanism kicking in. Because you think if you. Every night's gonna be like that, you wouldn't come back to work.

The hit of adrenaline, you know, it's not like it's a one second thing, that kind of job you are, you know, it's a prolonged period that you're, you know, reacting to something. So it must be pretty exhausting when you then come back and just try and say decompress. But then I guess sometimes you might, you might then go straight out again.

That's the weird thing about the fly service is that you can be on a shot like that and then come back and then you can be in for an hour or two hours, four hours, and you get another shout out. And the worst is when it's in the middle of the night. So they used to allow us to just kind of get some rest after midnight. From midnight till 6, you can stand down and just kind of, you can do what you want. So a lot of people would kind of try and get their head down. And if you're in asleep and the bells go, there's a sickening drop in your stomach just through the sheer bolt upright and you want to move and you go down the pole into your kit onto fire engine and within often within 60 seconds, you're out the door, depending what. How quickly you can turn out. And you feel that, and then you hear what it is. Like if it's a person's reported fire, multiple calls, fire, or a road traffic accident, person's trapped. You kind of have a real buzz of adrenaline, and there's this. There's this real feeling sometimes you get there and you turned away, so you're ready. Ready for action. And then it's dealt with. You know, there's enough people there, they've dealt with it, and then you're turned away, and then it can go again and then turn it. And it is exhausting. It's exhausting in that adrenaline pathway. And I think, you know, that plus the sleep deprivation, you know, is. Is Plays havoc, I think, with a lot of guys and I think, and girls and I think that they. They struggle with that. It's. It is a job of adrenaline and it's the job of. It's a job of stuff.

Yeah.

And it's a funny one, because when. When I hear soldiers or, you know, armed forces talking about. Talking about PTSD and you know, the kind of. The kind of adrenaline rushes that they got during combat, I guess that's the equivalent of our combat. The difference is. I guess, and this isn't a competition, it's just different. The difference is that our battlefield is our local communities within which we live.

Yeah.

You know, we will walk past. I mean, I was. I was up in a conference near Oxford street, just near off Harley street, place called the Kings Fund last week. And I walked up Oxford street and I stopped and I thought, this is weird. I recognize this piece of street. And I realized why the shop front hadn't changed. And there was a really nasty RTA there, which I had to attend. And for that moment in time, for that few hours when someone was trapped, we. That the whole world revolved around that piece of pavement. And there's nothing there. That person, unfortunately, passed away. There's nothing there. It was a traumatic experience for everyone involved. And it was weird because I thought, oh, God, I haven't been. I literally haven't been back to this part of.

Yeah.

You know, and I thought. And it took me there. You know, it's reliving it.

Yeah.

And that's the battlefield for us. You know, there's a reason why a lot of, you know, ex first responders, you know, rescuers, police, paramedics will struggle with, you know, maybe, you know, my fiance really takes a piss out of me because I drive really carefully. Yeah, but there's a reason why I drive. I didn't always drive carefully, you know, I was like any other teenager, man, you know, but now I drive carefully, you know, it's like almost like comically so. But it's because I know what goes wrong. And, yeah, you know, it's part of that, where. That's part of what I experienced in terms of trauma has affected the ongoing, the young. You know, I've dealt with a lot of it, but I think you'll be a fool to say that it doesn't affect you if you do something that young and things like, I could be eating dinner and I just suddenly can't eat it.

Right.

Because there's another weird thing that happens in the service is you're eating your dinner and then you get a shout, which is a call to something, and your dinner's there. So you put a plate over it and you put it in something called the hot plate, and you hope that it's not going to be a long shout. You come back. You could come back from something really gory, and then you've got to eat your dinner.

Yeah.

So I have an association with food sometimes where it reminds me a certain smell or something. And I hear from some people who have obviously served as well, that's not uncommon. It's hard to explain that to people, you know, to your loved ones. Because you don't want to tell them why.

Yes. Yeah.

Why would I want to tell them why I can't eat that?

I was just thinking, you know, I mean, one of the reasons with the whole man academy is about encouraging guys to talk when, you know, not. Doesn't have to be that they're emotionally vomiting over people all the time and online and etc. But it's like if things are challenging or you just, you know, it's good to get around other guys to talk things through. So we know generally guys aren't great at talking anyway, let alone, as you said, when you've got harrowing things like that to discuss, who do you go and talk to? Because you certainly don't want to be unloading that, I guess, on your family.

It's not the family. I honestly don't think it's for the family to unpick that for you. I think you've got to do that with a professional or a trusted associate, whatever that may be. I would even say friends are good, especially if they've experienced that with you. But even so, if you've got a friend who hasn't experienced that, that's a bit much for them sometimes. So it's difficult. I think trying to find a neutral, non judging circle of support is important. There's always someone you can speak to. There's some great stuff out there now, you know, helplines and therapy services for people like me now and for the general population as well. And that's great because that wasn't the case 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Certainly, you know, I think people are more willing to talk now.

I think there's certainly more options and there's more options that are achievable because I would say back when I worked in the city, think like if there was a, if you had an issue, there was like one really wanky help line which no one was ever going to call and that was. And that was it. Whereas now there are a lot more kind of opportunities to find what, what works for you. But that takes me on to. So going from the young lad who then kind of grew into being fireman, then you started kind of realizing the elite level of fitness through your role there. So talk to me about the times when you were, you say at your fittest, when you were, I mean, mixing old school functional fitness as well as.

Well, that's when I was a recruit. That hard six months, it was all old school functional fitness. We got beasted. I mean it wasn't pretty but it worked, you know, I mean it's just hard work. Yeah, we just, we did circuits, old school circuit training. We did something called the filthy 15 and the dirty Dozen. And we had to do it and we had to, you know, complete it in a certain time. We were climbing, lifting equipment, climbing, putting it through obstacles. It was like, it was a kind of industrial obstacle training. Wearing your breathing apparatus, something as simple as what we call hose running, where you've got hose and you run it out, you connect it and then, then you coil it and you roll it back. Brutal in fire gear. Yeah, Heat and humidity training, brutal. All our fitness, all our PT in those days was functional. I got fit slowly when I got out of there. I kept that fitness and then worked on it and matured and I took up rowing as well, which really helped. And then I got my opportunity to go back if I wanted to as a physical training instructor after about four years operational. And I wasn't necessarily happy on my first watch. It was quite a toxic workplace and we can come on to that later. But you know, I was kind of, it was like my ticket out of there. It was best thing I ever did. Because you suddenly Realize that one of the best things you can do if you're in an environment like that is it's almost impossible to change it from the inside. As a junior, I think, you know, if you can shift across and then work out whether that was an odd environment or whether you're the odd one and being an odd person is fine, but being an odd environment is not. I think that's, that's the key. So you've got to kind of chop and change a bit to see where you are. But anyway, I went back to training as a pti, then got really fit. You know, that was my whole job was training recruits, testing are you fit enough to come in and then getting them through the six months I hadn't long, just got through myself and you know, so it was my job to then beast other people, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was, it was great, mate. I mean, you know, you're getting, you know, in a tracksuit, although getting paid really well as a fitness professional and you got to do kind of co collaboration stuff with other PT departments from other sections of the services. So we used to kind of do, you know, fitness, fitness challenge with the police and Marines, all sorts of other services and that was great. So there's an opportunity and again, really functional. So things like rowing are functional. But it was a variation on the similar theme where we'd get people to run. We would run down Albert, down the Thames Embankment with telegraph poles in two squads and we'd get into the local parks and we go, you know, up, over, up, over, get the pole up, we'll brace the pole and then someone have to climb up it and then we go again and it was. And then we'd run to the next part and we do 8 or 10 miles. It's called the rocket run. Not allowed to do it anymore. In fact, the whole training thing has changed. But it was like a rite of passage. Yeah, you have to get through it and yeah, good times. And you know, so that fitness also was honed really in wearing breathing apparatus. I was also a breathing apparatus instructor. And it, and what we call a real fire trailer, which is where you take people to purpose built facilities where you basically heat that. What was a mock up of either a ship or a plane or a house or warehouse. And you'd mock it up to have a very hot fire and then the crew would have to enter and then find the locate fire, put it out and exit with a casualty. And you'll be standing there making sure they didn't collapse or making sure it was hot enough. And yeah, some of the people I worked with in that role was, were mad. They're definitely, definitely breathed too much smoke because, you know, it was just. I'd never experienced any heat like that in real fires, let alone training fires. And I think that remains the same. People's advisors are melting.

Wow.

But what I would say about that kind of element, if, I think if you've gone through that, I think that's how training should be. You know, the reality should be easier than training.

Yeah.

Recent events, some of those, some of those personnel, you know, some of the five personnel who had to go up multiple floors in heat. Right. The limit of human endurance probably would have no doubt benefited from that really hard training they were given. No doubt you fall back on training when you're in situations like that and that's what training's for. But I certainly felt at the end of my time as doing that I was also a pt. I was also a breathing operating instructor. When I rotated back out to a new watch, I had the luck to rotate out onto a fantastic group of guys who are very like minded. So real, you know, kind of functional athletes. You know, we were doing CrossFit before CrossFit was a thing. We were doing it, but it wasn't called anything. We were tire flipping, sprinting, we were climbing rope, we were doing pull ups, dips and all in a circuit. It was very functional. And the station officer at the time was great, Bob Jones, a bit of a legend really. He allowed us, this is at Kensington Greenwatch, he allowed us just to train more than we usually were allowed to because you could see he had people who, I mean, his life was good in that regard because the worst thing is having lazy, lazy operators. And we're all good operators at the time that lasted about two or three years. When you know, things where you could look across every person, you know, and say, yeah, we're all able to pull our weight, literally pull your weight in a rescue situation. And I think for me, in terms of when that was manifested, I remember going into a, a person's reported apartment, a fire in an apartment. And we were told that there was a mum and baby in there and we were the first ones there. And it was myself and a guy called Steve. And we had to search. Well, we didn't have to, but we needed to search it as quickly as possible. It was a six, six bedroom apartment. It was huge. And we did it and it was, and we did a thorough search and we actually identified the fact that they weren't in there. But, you know, walking back through that flat afterwards, you know, seeing all the scorch marks and all the, all the smoke damage, you could see where we'd been because we. You do it a certain way where you leave a trail where your hands been and your feet have been.

Right.

And it was, you know, in terms of the reaperators where, I mean, it wasn't even a live rescue. But for me, I remember remembering it. That's why I remember it. I thinking that was. We were on point there, you know, we were. We were breathing efficiently, we were adrenaline ducks. You thought there was a casualty and it was a child. Yeah, yeah. We were properly kind of heightened. But within that we had control. And that was quite, you know, for me it was like, yeah, okay, I've kind of fulfilled my potential in terms of. This is what I need to maintain now.

Yeah.

Because I know how that feels. And anything else would be.

Won't be good enough and isn't maintaining. I know after speaking to lots of different guys who in their own field have achieved a high level of fitness and I'm pleased to say I did at some point. But often maintaining it isn't necessarily difficult because of your mindset, but because sometimes injury sets in and it kind of sets you back. So what brought your kind of career to the end with the fire service?

Yeah, injury, you know. Yes, I had about three or four years of that watch where it was just living the dream, you know, it was, it was great. It was a great, great experience and I, you know, and I'm privileged and honored to have had it. But then. Yeah, I think what happens is. Well, I had multiple injuries, so I had my first disc injury and it was a very awkward, A very awkward rescue that and some sometimes just can't lift properly and you've got to kind of get your body into awkward positions to. To get to extract someone from a. From an equally dangerous position. And I remember I was at the bottom of a. We had a big casualty kind of scoop we call it. And we kind of brace them in and we try to get them up. And this person had fallen down a sub. Sub basement. And you get in London, don't you, where it goes down two floors now right at the bottom of a spiral staircase. And so we had to come up a spiral staircase with this thing. One on the front, one on the back, nails on the back, fully extended. I remember after that something didn't feel right. And then a few days later I started getting referral and I had a scan and it was a disc injury which I nursed back to, you know, I nursed myself back to some kind of form. But from that point onwards, whenever I did anything vaguely athletic, I had a pull or a niggle in my back. And then unfortunately I was injured again. And that, that's what led to further MRIs. And at that point, you know, I was basically told no one certain terms that you can't be operational anymore. And you know, in those days they weren't redeploying people, they were just saying, okay, you can either do the job or you can't. So that was that. And just it was that quick that the decision was made. I did try to linger on, but I kind of knew that, you know, so I did this non operational. I was kind of non op for and I hated it. It was like dying, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

After those sorts of experience. And in the end I was also just struggling with pain. You know, I was in a lot of pain at the time. I had two or three disc prolapses and I had damage to the vertebral bodies themselves. And the nerve that had been pressed on, the sciatic nerve that been pressed on by the original disc injuries was not getting better. So, you know, I was on morphine, I was on gabapentin and looking for some help by the medical route which was basically, we can do surgery but we don't think it will help you. I'm glad it didn't actually. But you know, this is about the nervous system which has been hyper aroused. The sciatic nerve has been pressed upon which could take years to deal with. And it's interesting when you. So then I decided, well, you know, if I'm, if I'm going to retrain something. I was always interested in human performance in the body. And I'd had some interesting chats via treatment with some osteopaths I'd seen. So I thought, well, okay, I'll redirect my energies into that. And it was humbling because I didn't have an academic background.

Yeah.

Particularly I had to learn a new language. I had to learn how this is. I had to learn what it's like to be a civvie because I had been institutionalized.

Yeah.

And sort of language and I still struggle with this Anthony sort of language that. And some things I think, you know, are appropriate just aren't to people who aren't in that situation.

David.

Brutal old place man.

20 years working in the city with 95% men. I was the same way, you know, the stuff you said, people would not understand what you're talking about and you realize that's not appropriate for talking in the general population. So I understand.

Yeah, that was, that was the biggest thing, that was the biggest thing, you know, I was coming into. So I got a place. So luckily I managed to get a place at uni and started studying an osteopath. But you know, I'd be looking across at people who are fucking around in the lessons and they're 18, they don't know any better. And I'm like thinking why aren't you doing fucking press ups? You know, why aren't you fucking out there doing, you know, running up and down until I say stop? Until the instructor says stop? Yeah, you know, or actually why don't you just fuck off. I'm going to be here. You know, I was fucking furious and I thought hang on a minute, you know, not everyone, you know, they've come straight out of A levels, you know, this is. And you know, I kind of calmed down a bit and you know, I had to get my attitude right because that was difficult and also I was dealing with, with grief of. And I realize that now that I was dealing with grief because you have.

To reinvent yourself totally.

I was having to come from like being a physical being who identifies strongly with being a rescue worker.

Right.

And someone at that one point that, that crew that I worked with, you know, you know, we were, you wanted us coming if there was a problem. But then to being in quite a academic, I won't call it feminized that are very different, very different, you know, where it's all about your thoughts and all about your skills in that regard. And I had nothing to offer initially. I was lost man. So I just threw myself into, into you know, this, the world of study and actually I, I have to say through that, you know, and obviously I was motivated because I was trying to find answers to my own condition. You know, I found that, you know, I had, I had the ability to improve slowly which is what I set about doing over the next six years, seven years. So I qualified and then started working in clinic. And so in clinic I started to then work with two hats. So the, the clinician osteopath, somebody who has a deep understanding of pain but also the person who's had experience of being and training people and you know, thinking about functional fitness. And there was a real benefit to that because actually why I pulled myself out of needing morphine and gabapentine and you know, looking at a one Way ticket to a surgeon's table, really. It was by reactivating, thankfully, some of the old pathways I'd laid down and re strengthening, reconditioning, in effect to form a natural brace, a natural girdle around which I could then function to a point. My running days were over. My, my squat and, you know, axial compression of the spine days were over. My boxing days were over to a point where I would think I'm a good performer. I can still, I still played around with it a little bit.

Yeah.

But those, those high performance days were over. But I think in terms of what I achieved in, in coming off the medication reinvention and then it's a cliche, but that does help me then talk to other people who have lost hope.

They've done that.

Yeah. Because, you know, I was, I was in a hospital bed with no hope.

Yeah.

Here I am, you know, speaking to you about these experiences. And I wouldn't say, well, I hate, I don't hate, but I sometimes roll my eyes when people say, oh, you know, my struggles. And you know, that experience is, is had value because, you know, it helps other people. And I get that. I'd rather have not had that experience.

Yeah.

Because it's still painful now. You know, I still have daily pain. You know, I still can't do certain things, but, you know, I can do a lot more actually than I would say the average person still. I still have the ability to enjoy myself and have that buzz and from physical activity still. It has informed what I do and it has actually led me down a few paths. So there has been a positive. And I think it's because I think the most important thing for anyone in that situation, finds themselves in that situation is to keep. Keep going.

Yeah.

Because everything does pass. I mean, it's true, but everything will pass. And with time, most things do improve. Well, I wonder in terms of physical injury.

I wonder on that. Let's say to the average guy that's listening to this, who is probably in his mid to late 30s and upwards, and I'll be 44 in a month's time. So I've kind of got enough friends around, you know, five years either side of my age who are interested in this. We want to talk about strength, preserving lifestyle choices because there's so many, you know, that's probably an hour's podcast in itself. But let's say a guy comes in who's got some back pain or some issues, kind of what would be the go to things that you'd say to kind of their lifestyle choices to kind of gain and preserve strength in the body.

Yeah, no one ever comes in and asks me that. But my first, whenever anyone comes in to my clinic and they're in that age category, I jump on them with that message. I've been jumping on people with that message for two or three years now. And I'll come to why later. But the reason that I jump on people in that message with that message is because irrespective of the why they've come across to me, they might have come to me because they've seen some of my profile and actually want to get into it a little bit. But you know, whether they like it or not, you know, I'm going to help your back out or your knee injury, I'll help you with that. But once that's better, this is what you need to be doing for the rest of your life. And strength preservation. And the reason I'm passionate about it is because I've been working with older people through, I'm on, you know, cross party think tanks. I feed into a lot of the resources that are put out there for older people. They're now being paid for by central government because of the worry about an aging population who are also detraining. We haven't got enough carers. Their quality of life is worse. You know, the grand challenge from the central government of improving the last five years of people's lives by 2035. Army Boy, one of those people in 2035. And I've been working on this stuff and when I work with people like the Royal College of Nursing or I work with the charter site of physiotherapy or you know, I work with, you know, these think tanks and steering groups. We all, we all know there's only so much you can do if you're asking someone to gain strength when they're 75.

Yes. Yeah.

Okay. There's only. So you can. Don't get me wrong, you can. But what could it have been if you just started at 55, 45 and carried on. And the reason I'm passionate about that is because all the research I've done into it, all the kind of, you know, all the messaging coming out absolutely identifies that strength. Muscular musculoskeletal function. But skeletal muscle tissue really defines our older age. If you can hold on to it, it's a metaphor for the quality of your life. It's not about aesthetics at that point. It's about can you get on and off of the toilet? Because if you can't you're going to need care of some sort. Right. It's about immune function. Frailty and fracture happen because we don't pull our muscles against our bones enough when we, when we hit a certain point in our life. So we get the double whammy of a hormonal drop off in middle age and we get another whammy coming in of detraining because of non use.

Yeah.

And you get people who fall and would potentially don't have to have a fracture, but they generally will have a fracture. People who die of colds and the flu. That's because your immune system isn't working as well as it was when they were 50. And we think now, in fact, we know now that there's a relationship between our maintaining skeletal muscle tissue and our immune function. And a lot of people now are saying that, you know, in terms of health promotion that skeletal muscle is an immune organ in its own right. Yeah, I think when we start recalibrating that message and thinking, dude, you're 45, you're 50, get on it now. Because you can't be asking someone to build muscle meaningfully in a short term, in a short space of time, you can do it. But here's the thing, muscle is like, it's not just muscle, it's a neuromuscular relationship. You know, the activation pathways, the movement that we go through and we drill certain movements, all those things lead to a fluency in movement, effluency and activation. And without that, you can't learn it in a short space of time. You certainly can't ask someone who's older to learn it as well as they can learn it when they're middle aged. And this is why I jump on people, because with a little bit of commitment to the longer view, what I call the long game, you can have. I believe there's an implicit relationship between your actions now and the next 20, 30 years. With a bit of luck, with a fair wind, we will have a bit of luck, but it's going to protect you. Taking up tennis, rambling bowls, cycling, you know, the things that people tend to do, they retire is fantastic. But do some strength training as well. Yeah, twice a week, three times a week, standalone activity. I include yoga in that actually, because yoga's hard if you do the right class, but I don't care what it is, but do some standalone resistance training, own body weight, water based stuff if you can. Resistance bands, doesn't have to be weight training, pull ups, dips, you know, they're the kings of Gym anyway, you don't, you only need, you know, better kings of gym. So do that and do it for the rest of your life because if you don't, you don't want to be regretting it, you know, you don't want to be regretting it. And I think there's so many health messages coming out of COVID to do with why people did better, why people didn't do so well. And a lot of it's focused around physical activity and physical activity has been overemphasized in terms of aerobic metabolic activity, metabolic health, quite rightly, I guess, because we did have, we have got an obesity issue, we have got heart disease issue, etc, etc, but we've also got a huge sarcopenia issue which is what kills you in the end. This is what makes you frail, this is what drives that immune system to almost non function. And the most modifiable thing we can do for ourselves is to, is to engage that system, the musculoskeletal system, the neuromuscular system, and do it regularly because without it, you know, I think, you know, we, we massively heighten the risk of not being able to do even the metabolic stuff.

Yeah.

So we talked briefly about, you know, some of the, some of the stuff that people like to do in terms of fitness. But everything comes, everything comes from your ability, your baseline strength, everything comes from that. There's your baseline work on that and do the other stuff around it. Do you running, do you cycle, do your swimming. Fantastic. Do the social stuff. Fantastic. But have your baseline. The baseline is a thing that hasn't been talked about. We have in this country, I think, something called a strength hesitancy where you go to the gym when you're a youth or you know, early 20s, 30s, it's maybe an aesthetic vein thing if you're in the services, it's more of a functional thing. It is also vain as well. I mean, come on, of course it is, but, but you know, there's that functional element to it as well. And I think people, for whatever reason, it drops off when you get to middle age.

Yeah.

People then say, oh, now I'm so cut. Iron man now. You know.

In the city kind of. Some men fall into, you know, there's different categories, but some men, funny enough, were the ones that suddenly decided to do the endurance events and it became like anything else in life. People love addictions, don't they? So you either, you know, addicted to drinking or addicted to this. And those guys are addicted to exercise, which I guess is Better addiction than some, but had some of the guys who. And I know some who would then kind of suffer from the dad bod because they have, you know, they might have done some good fitness stuff when they were younger. And I always think when you are young, you can kind of outrun a bad diet a bit. But as you get older, so many guys then, as we know, testosterone drops off, maybe they have kids, you know, you don't sleep so well, and the gym seems to fall by the wayside. And I just wonder for you, is that one of those things as well? It's, you know, for guys, it's trying to juggle everything else. They're spinning plates.

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's a hard message, Anthony, because it's the very time in your life when you're at your busiest, you know, that, you know, it's kind of, you know, you're juggling your career, your home life, you know, and your personal life, you know, your family life. All those things coalesce in middle age, traditionally. And that's the very time when you don't want to be dropping off in terms of resistance training. It's kind of the perfect storm, really. And. And this is why this message is so important, because obviously all those other things are massively important. But if you have the gift of being able to say to a loved one or a friend, you know, you need to do this for yourself. I want you to start doing this because when you're older, you're going to have independence. You can have resilience. You're going to be. You might be 85, 95, but you're going to be metabolically, chronologically much younger. Your immune system, you want to have to be frightened. Like older people get frightened and hesitant and withdraw from life. You can have a full life, hopefully until a few days or a week before you die, without the need to be on medication. If you had that in your gift to give that to someone, I'm sure you would.

Priceless.

We all do. Yeah, we all have that now within a gift to say to do it for ourselves and then to tell the ones around us to do it, because otherwise we are sleepwalking into a bit of a catastrophe. And I know it's not sexy because it's. It's 30 years time.

Yeah.

But I'm in a situation where I'm in that cohort that in which it matters. I have the knowledge and I'm trying to practice what I preach now, because I'm one of those people and I'VE just described what I want. I want that for the people around me that I care for, but I also want that for the people generally because I think it'd be a happy society, but I also want that quite selfishly for me.

Yes. Yeah.

And one of the inspirational people I've met actually was one of my patients and I worked with her 15 years and she died at 95. And she had a bit of luck. She obviously had a longevity gene but she built up her strength and held onto it. She built up a strength through dance related activities through her middle age and she never stopped. She was still out and going to dance classes in her mid-90s. And I would say once a month, 15 years just to straighten her out. Do have any problems, you know, bounce her out and then just give her the message saying keep going. I don't care if you're 95, I want you to keep doing your squats, I want you to keep doing your wall press ups, you band exercises. We had her on and I got the message a few months ago that she passed away.

Yeah.

And obviously, you know, it's upsetting because I'll miss her. She became a friend as well as a, as a patient and I learned a lot from her. And what she taught me was what? That's what I want. Okay. I, I, she died, she passed away peacefully in her own bed. She wasn't on any medication, she didn't have any care. She did exactly what she wanted to do until the day she died. And I think, you know, I often reference that for people. And so I know it's a long way off. With a bit of luck it's a long, long way off. But that's the spy to that. And there is within our control we can influence the chances of that quite, quite powerfully, quite significantly. There's a lot of snake oil out there. There's a lot of longevity snake oil out there. And one of the things we do know works is strength training. The right nutrition, the right mindset, the right elements within that strength training actually to do with speed and activation have massive benefits as well in terms because what we realize that when we see a drop off in so power drops off eight times faster than actual muscle mass as we age. Right. So when we think about what power is, speed times strength. So it's the acceleration, deceleration control, neural elements, neural subsystems of control around our joints and around our, our brain pathways to activate. If you had someone who's big but can't activate everything, they're not Used to you come with someone who's wiry and activating fully, they're stronger than the bigger guy or girl. And this is my point. Neural activation exercises, neural balance exercises, visualization that actually engage the nervous system help us preserve our strength as well. And this is what I kind of put into programs for people. You have a mindset to want to have that long game. Yeah, but it's a hamster wheel. It's hamster wheel. You got to get on that hamster.

Wheel and then stay on it sometimes trying to find. You know, I love exercise, I love the gym, I love everything. I'd happily do it every day. And I used to go very early. Whereas your mates would think you were nuts if you got up at half five to get to the gym. Even if you did half an hour of some swimming and stuff. And that's often the problem. You know, some people say they just don't. How about they don't like doing exercise And I guess in a way it's kind of like, well, yeah, maybe you. But you will like living a fruitful life of longevity instead of being. I always think the words are weak and feeble when you're old. No one wants to be feeble.

No, I think you've got. When you're one of those people, you've got ask what you do like, then what do you like? What do you like doing? Okay, did you want to do that forever?

Yeah.

Then do investors. An hour, an hour, a week, two half hour sessions. And I think we touched upon it, didn't we, last time? I mean, I totally get it. It's hard to actually commit to something really regularly. And I think people, if they miss it for a few weeks or a month, they don't go back to it. You should always go back. And even if you've done, there's quite recent research out that was talking about something called strength snacking which actually says that, you know, even if you haven't got the time or the mindset to want to do a standalone session, a little bit here and there, you know, five minutes here one way, at the end of one week another, you know, even a minute, you know, just do a set of press ups against the wall, some banded exercises. Yeah, if you get it in your routine will actually pay dividends. There's a really good scene from one of the later Rocky films where he comes out the back of his house. I think it's when he's creed. Anyway, he comes out the back of his house, he's lost all his money. And there's a pull up bar there. Yeah, this comes out and he kind of does a few pull ups. He gets in his van and drives off to the restaurant. I thought, yes, perfect. Exactly. That's gonna, that's, you know that actually he's demonstrating there what we put things in place where you can just walk. Oh yeah, come on then, let's just do it. Because not everyone loves it, I tell you. Fall out of love with it.

This is one of the big things from, you know, my 20, nearly 20 years working in the city is that companies weren't interested in your wellness and wellbeing back then. They didn't give a fuck about it basically. And whereas now I know if I was running, if I had an office, I would be, you know, I'd probably have a couple of rebounders, I'd have a pull up bar and maybe something so people could, if they are in the office a lot, they could still jump. Like you say strength snack or just movement snacks, just to go and jump on things. Even if you're on Zoom calls, you could still maybe sit on an exercise bike or something. You know, if you're not, you don't have to be sprinting, you know, just, just to keep moving instead of just sitting on your ass all day.

Oh, man. Yeah, we're not meant, I mean we all know that we're all meant to be doing that. You know, we all line in, we work, we're now channeled into roads, trains, pathways and it's all linear. And we're not linear. We evolved to be multi directional, upper right exploration organisms and we're out there. That's why we survived, I think. And yeah, I mean, I think the office thing, they're slowly turning on to it. People are starting to talk about walking meetings and, and I fully support that. But the office is, I mean, I would say it's a health risk. Yeah, the old school office environment is. I, I just, I would say it's a health risk if you don't have some adaptation in there like a TRX or the ability, have a shower in the office. You can cycle into work at least and have a shower.

Yes.

So you get something in just a little bit. Yeah, it is a little bit. But I think it's also training clever because you know, you no doubt heard this a million times, you know, work hard, play hard. I'm going to rinse myself, you know, you know, pain is weakness leaving the body, all that bullshit. It isn't. Pain is pain. Pain means something. Don't ignore that, you know, actually keep an eye on that because otherwise you're coming to see me quite soon, you know. And I think, I think you've got to, as you get older, I think you've got to train clever. You've got to be your expert on yourself, you know, what your body. We all have different shapes, we have different morphotypes, we have different things that we, we gravitate towards in terms of body shape and body mass. And we all know when we're healthy weight. So I don't really, really do BMI and stuff like that. I think, you know, just, you know, I've got a pair of trousers, right? That's my bm. I've got a pair of trousers I keep, I never wear, I don't wear them out. I've got a pair of trousers I got when I was about 35. If I can get into those trousers, yeah, I'm in shape.

Yeah.

And if they're a bit tight, then I think, you know, the trousers don't lie, man.

That's it.

Okay. I gotta kind of just change my shape a bit down to a bit more like that as opposed to like that.

The trousers. The trousers don't give a fuck.

Trousers don't lie. Mirror doesn't lie, Trousers don't lie.

So there's the key for guys is find some trousers for when you're in your best shape and basically stick with it. Well, we'll jump onto that. I mean, I know we could talk about all these different issues, but let's talk about leadership because I think for guys, I'm changing my stance in my seat, but for a lot of guys, leadership is one of those things that doesn't necessarily get taught to us as we're growing up. And I think it's something that men should. We always talk about thought provoking, content, but listening to different people, different guys in different positions to learn more about how to lead other people or even lead yourself and your family. So, you know, give us your thoughts on that. Especially because you've gone through the fire brigade, which is very regimented, and then kind of gone out on your own, as it were.

I think on leadership, I think it's always got to start from oneself in terms of the old cliches and don't ask someone to do something you're not prepared to do yourself.

Yes.

And you know, that one thing I think says most of the lessons that I've learned have been confirmed by that during my five service days. And, you know, I've also been involved with medical teams, pitch side injury triage and things like that, which, you know, I've had to take leadership role in and applied quite similar things. You've got your hands dirty as leader. I think what some leaders find difficult is to be able to step back when you get to a certain level of seniority in whatever endeavor you are in, certainly within any uniform service, I think that's an issue because although you want to see what's going on, you've also got to then detach and sit back and be objective. And not at that point, but I think if the thing about the fire service is that everyone's gone through that, it's a meritocracy. You work your way up from the, you know, the lowest rank. So everyone has an understanding of what they are asking the lowest rank to do. Even if you're the chief, you know what that means because you've worked your way right up through and there's something in that, there's a value to that that I think is, is very special because you do whatever you decide, even if you don't decide to go for promotion. Leadership can also be mentoring. So if you're a senior leading firefighter or senior firefighter and you've been given a, what we call, we call the junior people, junior bucks like to do, so you got the buck kind of to look after. And you know, I was in a pretty toxic first environment when I was posted out and I was in an environment where there'd been no churn or personnel for about 10 years. And that's unhealthy.

Yes, no, fresh.

And I was landed into that as a really fresh faced young guy thinking this is great. And everyone was like, it was a bit odd, it was just a bit strange. It was a bit strange. There's, you know, there was a lot of kind of, there was no teaching going, was no mentoring going on. There was no kind of, no one really to look up to. And I, I think I referenced it earlier in our chat that when I was up in Oxford Street a few weeks ago, I was taken right back to an incident that happened. And that incident said everything about poor leadership to me.

Right.

I, we turned up to a, a scaffolding lorry early hours of, it was about 6 in the morning on a Saturday. The scaffolding lorry had run over a cyclist, right. And we got there and the cyclist, she was, she was lovely. She was still alive. I don't know how, but she was a nurse and we were there waiting for the air ambulance to turn Up. And the station officer said, right, we need to try and make it more comfortable. And said, dave, under you go. You know, And I was 19 at that point. And to say that, to send me under, you know, when there are these other more senior experience personnel and officers and actually one guy actually offered to come with me, which is great. Reg came with me, and thank God he did. But, you know, so Reg said, you know, you speak to her. I'm gonna try and deal with her. And, you know, it was awful under there. I won't go into it, but it was just something you couldn't believe. She's still alive. And she raised up a conversation with her.

Yeah.

And I remember we made as comfortable as we could. We had to detach the bike from her without going into details. And, you know, obviously she was ebbing and flowing out of consciousness, but she wasn't any pain. Thankfully, we had a paramedic, had got a line of morphine into her, but I was chatting to her. It was a real privilege to spend that time speaking to her because I was probably one of the last people to speak to her.

Yeah.

And I was able to kind of speak to her family afterwards. And I was 19. And I think as an older guy now, I remember coming out from underneath the scaffold lorry when our job was done. I looked across at the rest of the crew who'd assembled about 10ft over there, and none of them could look me in the eye.

Yeah.

And I remember thinking, that's a bit weird. And years later, Red said, I never forget how you look that morning. You know, I was completely white. And for me, leadership would have been not. Not sending me under, but send the experienced guys. I. The station officer's gonna go under.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna. And then afterwards, we're gonna debrief it. That's leadership. Because everyone who signs up for that sort of role has got me prepared to do things like that. So my point being, when I got opportunity to be a mentor later on and to be a junior officer later on, there's no way that was happening. You know, they were going to get supported. And I'm still thankfully, really friends with really good friends with a guy called Andy, who I. Who I like to think I took under my wing and gave him the benefit of the conversations that I never had.

Yeah.

I think that's when you can lead, when you can think. Okay. Well, it wasn't given to me, but what would I have liked to have heard?

Yeah.

As a young guy or young girl at that point I was able to have that conversation. So when I was talking to Andy, you know, years and years later, I was kind of talking to myself as well, if that makes sense. Yeah, it was kind of. This was a bit of closure for me to making something good happen. Because the worst thing would be for me to become an embittered. An embittered, you know, senior guy who then thinks, bucket, I'm not gonna look after anyone either.

Yeah.

I think leadership is about breaking those negative cycles because we all have experiences like that in our lives. And I think the key be that in personal lives where we didn't have a parental role model or, you know, where you have things that are really shit that happen to you, there's no one there to really kind of help you out, you know. But I think if you're in a position when it then happens later, then, and you're in a position of authority, it's a hugely healing process.

Yeah.

And it comes back to my initial suggestion that, you know, you've got to be prepared to do these things yourself as a leader, and you've got to be prepared to get your hands dirty. And I think also just acknowledging your own kind of, your own humanity within that uniform, if you're in a uniform or within that role, because we're not robots, what your title is, you're still a human being.

Yeah.

It's a good reminder because I'd wager that a good percentage of guys listening to this maybe have staff or people, I call it, under them. It doesn't mean they're lower than them, but maybe lower ranking in the company. And I always think it is that important thing of realizing because I've reflected back on when I worked at some companies and had some real fucking assholes who were. Didn't help me at all. I was gonna use another word that rhymes with hunt, but I felt like you said it created an odd atmosphere and an uncomfortable and unpleasant one. And I don't think there's anything positive that comes out of that at the time. So it's a good reminder to sometimes look around and be like, you know, like you said, what are your actions? How are they creating an environment and how are you helping the youngsters? Because they're the ones that need the most steering and the most kind of, you know, nurturing, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, a toxic environment. You're absolutely right. That's a great point. I mean, a toxic environment is like a virus, isn't it? That it will spread and spread to the next generation? The Next generation, the best thing to do is just nip that in the bud. As I said, you know, if I was. If I was giving a piece of advice to someone who wasn't particularly happy in their team, whatever that team is, then try and move along if you can. You know, try something different. Try a different role. See how that feels. Because you're never going to change that toxic environment from the inside. As a junior member of the team, it's got to be. It's got to be changed via senior leadership. And sometimes you. You can waste five or 10 years or a career trying to change the toxic environment, then you suddenly realize you're part of it.

Yeah.

So my advice would be, life's too short, you know, do a sideways move, and if you still find yourself in a weird, toxic environment, it's probably you, you know, but that's okay. But don't but be. But own it, you know, and, you know, find your way. But don't waste your time in a. In a. In a toxic team. Because when you actually strike gold and you find that you probably found this, you know, when you move to different teams. Oh, that's better. This is a relief. I thought everyone was an asshole, actually. No, it was just them who were assholes. And these people are really great, you know, life is good, you know? You know, actually, I really want to come to work. Yeah, do it. Because when you strike gold, there's nothing better. It's. You're not working for a living. Suddenly you're just enjoying that part of the life that you're getting paid for.

You know, you said that there. You know, I think it's a game changer or it's priceless when you work in the right team. I worked in teams that were not right at all, and I was. Every morning you didn't want to go to work, and then you swapped to somewhere where it was a great group, and suddenly the whole world is sunshine and rainbows again.

And, you know, it's the best. Yeah, it's the best. That shit. It's like a bad relationship, man.

Yeah. Yes.

That's another podcast in itself. Well, I know we've come to the end of the interview because we've gone down some good paths here, but I often reach out to some guys. I tell them who I'm going to have on the podcast and what have you. One of the guys asked a question about what was the most fun thing about being in the fire service?

The best thing was. I think we actually. I watch. Made the Evening Standard that Evening. So we got our wristlet, but we were stationed in around. Well, I was stationed around Chelsea and Kensington and one night, it was London Fashion Week and there was a fire alarm went off and it happened to be the backstage of one of the major design shows and we were invited to join the after party and station officer very kindly said, you've got half an hour, lads, off you go. And we made the most of it. Sounds terrible, but unfortunately we got snaps. It was a good PR for the London 5G, but we got snapped. I think it was evening standards dancing away, just half an hour. Obviously we had our radios, we would have responded. And actually, before anyone says anything, we probably got to that incident faster because we weren't in the station, we were out. So just defending it 25 years later. Yeah, but that was pretty cool. That was. Yeah. I've got several stories. That's the only one I can be telling.

I was going to say, I'm sure after speaking to several firefighters or ex firefighters that would say it's like you could do your own an evening with and just recount the kind of crazy stories. A bit like with work in the city. I've had people say to me, well, what was it like? And you're like, well, how long have you got? Because you realize the more you think about it, I'm sure for you also, was it part of the camaraderie of having. I guess also back then, what percentage of your kind of the overall team was men? Would you say it was? 90%? 95%.

95%, yeah. I've probably higher than 95%. I mean, it's very much changed now. I mean, because you understand that I've been out now for, you know, I think maybe 20 years. So it's very much different now. And I'm quite right because again, I think there needs to be diversity in teams. You need to be hearing different points of view. You do, you need. You need different experiences, different diversity and that includes different sexes. And I fully support that. As long as. As long as whoever that person, male, female or whatever can do the job.

Capable.

Yeah, then I haven't got a problem.

Yeah.

I mean that, you know, I was a PTI doing fitness tests and, you know, I wouldn't care what your gender was. Just, can you do that task?

Can you save someone and.

But, yeah, exactly. But I think, I think camaraderie. Yeah.

Or did you miss that? I know it's a long time ago now, but I've spoken to a lot of guys, again, who've come out of different things and certainly working for themselves. And I've said I miss it. I said it today on an email. I miss being in that environment with forgetting, with this. Men, women, but a big group of people. There's loads of energy, lots of banter, laughter, stupid behavior, drinks. And then suddenly when you work on your own, it's like your world shrinks a lot.

Yeah, it. Take it. You know, there's a lot of. There was a lot of grief around leaving, and I still have to deal with that because I joined in my very formative years and I think a lot of soldiers probably experienced this. You gent. You tend to join these services when you're a youth and it's formative. And how can that not impress upon the rest of whatever else you do? I still identify as a firefighter, but I've done so many other things. You know, I'm with so many other kind of strings to my bow. But if you were to ask me what. What. I don't. What do you identify? That's me. Yeah, that's me. And that's hard. But, you know, there was a. There was a blessing there because I've gone on to other stuff and. And I wouldn't have taken those, even the good, the bad experiences away. But, yeah, that's, that's, that's. I think everyone deals with that differently. I don't miss when it goes wrong. I don't miss the sleepless nights. I don't. And I don't miss the risk to life because I'm not mad now. I'm out. I think, you know, got away with quite a few near misses and I wouldn't want to be in that position now. Again, benefit of hindsight, being a father, you know, and actually dealing with injuries as a professional. Now, you then think, yeah, that's pretty gnarly what I did there. But, yeah, it was good, you know, and I came through it. You need a bit of that, you know, I think you need a bit of adrenaline and excitement as a young dude. And thankfully, I came through it uninjured to the point where I was able to still live a normalish life. I was injured in such a way that ended my career.

Yeah.

But can't take that away. Can't change history, so move on. And actually, you know, I'm, you know, I'm enjoying. It's good to talk about it, you know, I think talking is good and, you know, that's why I like your message, because it's good to talk about it. So whatever it is, I guess, you're doing. And if you are transitioning out of a role or a job that you're a bit lost. That's normal.

Yeah.

You know. You know, hopefully, you know, the message in this is that of course you're going to miss it.

Yeah.

Be a bit weird if I didn't, but that's why. Because it was intense when we were. But I wouldn't say I'd want to go back to that now. Someone said, you do it again. I say, maybe not.

Yeah.

And also, I think the old saying of never go back, it probably. It would never be the same as it was. You know, I know guys in the city who still work there and, you know, I. If you talk to them and we'll reminisce about the good stuff that used to happen, then they'll say, do you know what? You know, certain things have changed and it's just not the same anymore and it's not as much fun. And a lot of that comes from new regulations that stop you taking clients out and you have to tick every box and all the bullshit that goes with it. And I just look and I'm like, I always think I left at just about the right time, certainly for me, but, you know, think the game was changing, so. Well, it's been good. And also, I know you're off on holiday soon.

I am.

When you're away. Do you exercise on your. When you're. If you're off for like a two weeks, or do you just relax?

No, I'm a nightmare. My. My fiance hates it. I just can't sit still. I'm an absolute nightmare. I'll try this time because it's been two years since anyone's had a holiday, so this one I'm gonna try.

Yeah.

Going to lovely Greek island, so I can't wait, you know. Yeah. So no, there's a gym. I mean, you know, a lot of guys probably identify with this. Got to make sure. The gym at the hotel. Right.

Yeah.

Which I've done.

I think that's it. It's. I don't mind sitting down for a few days, but then I start to get a bit, you know, a bit kind of jittery where I want to go and burn off some energy or something like that, so.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I've got to practice what I preach.

Yeah.

Practice what I preach. Can't just, you know, that's like. I've set myself up now, haven't I? So I just got to crack on with it.

Well, if anybody Anyone listening sees David whilst on holiday and he's not working out.

I wonder.

Oh, great evidence but. Well, I appreciate, I mean it's been great to connect and also just to just listen to your kind of thought provoking stories, which is always, I think part of the whole man academy. And the podcast is bringing guys on that someone might not have either heard of or would probably their paths might not have crossed and hopefully there's some good, good golden nuggets there. And again we, you know, we're always trying to put on different events either online or in person, probably in London. So hopefully at some point our pars will cross for a man hug and you can assess my bad back.

Well, first thing I'll ask you is are you still doing your strength? That's the first thing I'll be on you, so. But yeah, that'd be good, mate. Yeah, I'd love to meet up in person and you know, meet some of the other. Yeah, some of the other guys from the academy.

Yeah.

Now we will say the connections have grown through the podcast are impressive, to be honest. But well, I will let you go. I appreciate all your time and I will speak to you soon.

Cheers, man, it's been a pleasure. Thanks.

Thank you, David.

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