EP011 - Transform your world - David Key

But Dave, welcome to the Whole Man Academy podcast.

Thank you.

The first question is always, how are you? And then, where are you?

Hey, I'm in Dad's shed right now here in Hertfordshire, looking out on some beautiful fields. There's maybe 20 acres at the back here, so I can just hop over the fence at this time and go for one lap of the field, and I've got my steps in. So that— I'm very fortunate Very fortunate. And what was the other question, by the way?

You said just how are you?

How am I? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm very grateful. Um, grateful to have a garden, um, when so many people that I know are struggling right now, um, being stuck in small spaces. So, um, yeah, mine's free and I'm doing my best to be in service to people who are struggling right now.

Yeah, I'm in a good place, which for a lot of us is kind of all you can do if you're at home, to add value to other people. And talking about adding value, I know to start with, when I met you, you told us about your own story of how you had a, let's say, a corporate background, and then maybe a slightly more challenging time, and then came out of it and moved into the coaching. So tell us a little bit about that.

Wow. Okay. So yeah, so how I got into helping other people and impacting other people's lives and then their mental health and well-being really started— I went to a number of different schools. I had lots of different jobs. I tried hairdressing. Yeah, I lasted 6 weeks. I was looking at my hands, seeing if they're still cracked after all that hair washing. I got as far as doing a cat Highlights, where you put this thing on someone's head to do highlights, like a condom actually. You put it on the head with holes in and you have to put a needle in to pull out the hair. And I think I stabbed a couple of the clientele unintentionally, drawing blood, and they were like, I don't think this is for you. So that was about it. So this is in my late teens after leaving school with no academic qualifications. And I ended up moving into sales. Actually worked for an electronic components company selling Japanese, uh, um, electronical comp— electronics to large organizations over the telephone. So it was telesales. And then, um, I moved from there. I was around 20, and one day I had an argument with one of the product managers, and he said, you'll never make anything of your life. And we had an argument over something, and I was really put out by that. And I was very much— came from a sort of a type of person that if you told me it couldn't be done, I wanted to find a way to do it, just to annoy you, because I was quite an angry young guy, um, full of testosterone, a bit like a rock violin was my nickname many occasions. Um, so I— that afternoon I went out and bought the local paper. I was working in Ilford in sort of London, just sort of, uh, northeast London. And in the paper they were advertising for some jobs, and one of them said, uh, computer company, software company and hardware. So they sold hardware and software. Um, they're looking for a sales secretary. And I really didn't want to be going back to the work after the argument. I was still fuming. And I phoned the number, and the guy on the end of the phone said, uh, oh, have you applied— phoned up to apply for the sales secretary as well? I said no. I just considered that if you have sales secretaries, you probably have salesmen, right? Anyway, well, funny you should say that. I'm currently writing an advert for us to recruit our first salesperson in the Alford office. I ended up having a number of interviews and getting offered the job, and this was a stroke of luck. It was more instinct than anything. My father had worked in the IT industry from the 1960s and I'd vowed that I'd never work in computers because I just thought they were boring and too complicated. Yeah. And here I am going for an interview at an IT company, you know, systems house. And they— and there's— and the finance director and the sales director said, look, we'd like to take you on and make you an offer. You've got a choice. Do you want to sell hardware or do you want to sell software? And my father developed software, so I had a bit of an understanding, and the hardware just looked a little bit dull. To be honest. Forgive me if you sell hardware. But anyway, so, and I was like, no, I don't want to sell computers, which was the best decision at that time because the margins that we were making on software were running at around 90%, and the margins they were making on computers were— on hardware, ICL Computers, IBM— was around 30%. And within 12 months of starting there in the late '80s, The competition for hardware went up, prices plummeted, and margins went from 30% to like 5%. So you'd have to sell like 20 times as much to make the same amount of target. Yeah. Whereas the software, I could just keep doing the same thing. So I ended up working in the software industry for a number of years and ended up working for the MD, former MD of Apple Computers, Peter Cobb. He was the MD in the UK in the late '80s. And he set up his own software business, and I ended up being the VP of sales for his small company, turnover maybe $10 million a year. And after a while, I didn't enjoy what I was doing anymore, the software. And one particular company that I was working with had lots of problems with it. And I will never forget the day I went for a meeting with the IT director of a very large housing association, and he was about to place an order for £500,000 for our software, or potentially with a competitor. And he took me to lunch and he asked me a question. He said, look, David, I've only been here for 3 months and I really like you, and I'm thinking of placing an order this afternoon for £500,000. Am I making the right decision? That was a really tough question. Yeah, here's why. I knew that the software that I was selling for the company I worked for, lots of clients were suing them because there were a lot of bugs in the software.

Okay.

And he didn't know what they were, and I hadn't told him. And it was in that moment that I said, no, you're not. And there was a voice in one ear going, what the hell have you done? Because I was on for 10% commission.

Yeah, 10%.

Yeah. Um, and then in the other ear was like, you can't do it to him. You can't put him in this position where he invests in a product that's going to create more problems for him. Um, so I walked away from that company and I decided within a short period of time I wanted to go and train as a coach, because I've been fascinated with coaching, Anthony. Yeah, I was fascinated with hypnosis, um, and trained with a Harley Street hypnotherapist in the mid-'90s.

And what was that like at that point?

Was—

now, um, you know, there's, there's a lot of even online hypnotherapy training so people can do it at home if they want to, but I've seen you in action and there's nothing like watching you, you know, hypnotizing someone either very quickly, or when you take them to trance and have them, you know, levitating, you put a stool on them and some books on them, and your brain is saying this isn't possible.

I know, because, you know, we watch a lot of things on TV and you think there's some sort of magic. You know, all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. So when you understand that actually um, you're as the subject, you're giving up your critical faculty, your logic, your reasoning, to the hypnotist. Say, go on, hypnotize me. And say, well, as long as you follow the instructions, it's really easy. Now, all the hypnotist really is is like a guide, and a guide that shows you how to go into a trance, and also understands how to use language to bypass people's logic. So stories, yeah, metaphors, telling you someone— you're just sharing your journey. It's almost like hypnotic in itself because as kids, children, you know, one of the— most kids, not every kid, but most kids have parents or get someone read them a story at bedtime. And that's when we're tired and feeling a little bit sleepy. So as we're in this sort of altered state of consciousness, as we're starting to really relax, and someone starts— a parent, loving parent— reads us a beautiful story that starts off with 'once upon a time.' 'Once upon a time,' it seems, induces trance when you even use that language. It's quite amazing. Yeah, feel relaxed. But I got into hypnosis whilst I was in the IT industry, in the corporate world, because I had some habits and behaviors that I wanted to change in myself, and I'd seen a friend at a stage show do some really bizarre things. I mean, really bizarre, you know, from drinking a pint of lemonade, but it wasn't lemonade, it was vinegar, you know, and him going, oh, this is lovely. I mean, to eating an onion thinking it's a peach, and some of the hypnotic phenomena that your brain, like you just said, your brain's sort of going Really?

Yeah.

But because I knew him so well and he was a close friend, I knew he wasn't putting it on. Mm-hmm. I absolutely 100% knew he's not— he's not making this up. Yeah, might have a little awareness what he's doing, but he wouldn't do these things because he was the shyest person I'd ever met. So he wouldn't even be on stage doing this stuff, but he was. Yeah. So at that point, I decided I wanted to learn about it. I was just fascinated with how the mind works. I studied and read many books going back into the early '80s. 1980s on personal development, and that was the start of the crossover between corporate and people coaching.

For people that don't know, I was lucky enough to spend a whole week with you a couple years ago, and I, and I really mean this, it changed my life for various reasons, but one of them I think would be basically the 3 principles and and your introduction of Sid Banks and his message, which you delivered through you, and then kind of, um, what's the word, kind of expanded on to help us try and get more of an understanding. So where for you in life were you when you first had, um, an introduction to Sid Banks, and, and how's it changed your life?

Okay, wow. I'm going back now nearly 8 years, right? Okay, so for those listening, um, interested in, in this journey, it's really simple. I was in corporate world, transitioned into hypnosis and coaching 20 years ago formally, but I'd been— so maybe 3 decades coaching and using my understanding about the mind. And I've been studying this discipline, and then I encountered a personal challenge in my own in my own life, and everything that I'd been doing up until that moment didn't seem to be helping me. I was really confused. See, I've had clients come to me with challenges in their relationships— depressed, anxious, um, you know, stressed. But she was talking about Whole Man Academy and mental health right now, so there's a, you know, those are everyday human experiences that people watching this right now might be experiencing. Stress, anxiety, conflict in relationships. So when I encountered this personal challenge in my own relationship and my marriage was going off a cliff, metaphorically speaking, yeah, I couldn't understand why all the skills that I had weren't being handy or of any use to me. Didn't make sense. Not only was I struggling But everything that I learned, every book that I had— and I've got a library with over 500 books in here, and I'm reading them going, why is this pain, this sadness, this, this problem not going away when I understand how the mind works? And here's what I discovered: I didn't really understand how the mind worked properly. Not deeply enough. I understood hypnosis and trance, but I hadn't seen what is so simple that when people see it, this new understanding that's realized by Sid Banks, this welder, a Scottish welder, a normal guy who had a realization— well, I had a similar realization, not similar to Sid. He was enlightened. I just had a mini insight.

Yeah, but you'll take that.

Yeah, I'll take that every day of the week, because what I saw was I was struggling and suffering, and I had stress and anxiety because I didn't know how my mind worked. Yeah, blimey, that's a bit of a wake-up call when you've been teaching people for a long time.

Yeah.

So that was around 8 years ago, um, Anthony. And then I went on a journey and started working with one of the greatest psychological minds alive today, okay? Um, and he really showed me how the mind worked, and it was so simple. See, what I hadn't realized was that just having an understanding of how the mind works was enough to help people. You didn't need techniques, hypnosis, trance, stories, metaphors. Although I use a lot of metaphors and stories to share what I understand, because it's really difficult to want to teach something that's invisible. Yeah, people go, well, what's invisible? Gravity is invisible. Yeah, you have to use metaphors. Like, here's a metaphor for gravity: the pen dropping is not gravity, it's the force that causes it to drop that's invisible. Gravity. Well, it's the same with how the mind works. What We have to use stories and metaphors and examples because it's invisible. Consciousness is invisible. Thought is invisible. I can't go, there's a thought. Look, yeah, it's like it's happening inside people. So what I learned really quickly, instead of trying to freaking change thought, instead of trying to manage thought, instead of doing all of these things, like my little realization— I had a realization my light bulb moment.

Do you think with— do you think the fact that it's so simple is sometimes what's so hard for people to grasp?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. We can give analogies of where something so simple has been explained to human beings for hundreds of years and they didn't catch on, like, um, washing your hands right now. They were saying that hundreds of years ago with the plague. Some people, but the majority weren't. Some people, some doctors said it's germs that are killing people, you need to wash your hands, sterilize your instruments. This is over 100 years ago, more than that, 2, 3, 400 years ago. When did they discover germs? You'd have to Google that one. Germ theory, right? Took 50 years before doctors around the world, or people in the know, went, oh yes, it wasn't the smell that was killing people, it was the germs. And washing your instruments and hands is a way of protecting people from dying of other illnesses. Isn't that interesting that human beings didn't believe it? Yeah, so something so simple, it's so easy for a human being who can't see something like— they couldn't see germs, or people, you know, used to think they're going to fall off the edge of the earth, right? Because they thought the world was flat. So lots of people didn't get in their boats. Their whole behaviors changed when they realized that, oh, you could visit nice countries and beautiful places.

So how would you sum up— I've struggled with this one as well, not personally, but trying to help people understand. I try and sum it up as your thoughts control your feelings, and let that sit with someone for a while. And maybe you have a better or a different way of helping people explain or understand the three principles so that they can grasp it quickly?

Yeah, well, the first thing is trying to get someone to grasp it would be like a doctor who's seen a germ under a microscope trying to explain to another doctor who hasn't, yeah, that there is something here that you— that's causing you illness, but even though you can't see it with your eyes. Okay, so it's really difficult.

Yeah.

Um, especially when they're not listening and they're not receptive and they believe it's this, right? You try and get someone to vote for a different political party when they're— they've been voting and believing this all their lives, right? I want you to now vote for the other side. No, this is the right way. Yeah, so people hold on to their beliefs, and sometimes people believe that the external world is creating their experience. It's coronavirus that's making me anxious. No, it isn't. It's an impossibility. But if you don't know that, if you really think your feelings are coming from what's happening to you, you're going to struggle. So I think the only way to share something that you know to be true is from a place where your heart is open and you say, look, I know this is true. Because I've seen the germ under the microscope, or I've seen that my thoughts change, aren't the same all the time. I've seen that when I read something in the newspaper about the craziness that's going on in the world, that I go into my mind and make a story and scare myself. I've seen that I do that. It's not the newspaper or the article, that's just words. Yeah, a certain sequence. I've made a story from that, or taken someone else's doom and gloom and story and taken it on and made it worse than it is. I've seen that's true. I know it's not the outside world creating my experience. Now, someone who doesn't might try and control the outside world, right? So to answer your question, How can you help someone see? Well, number one, they gotta want to.

Yep, it's a very good point. Some people don't.

Some people don't. Some people don't want us to know that. Is it possible that you could be scaring yourself? Because you see, if the answer to that question is yes, And what about all those years and years that you've been doing it to yourself? That's kind of— that's a big one to take on the chin, isn't it? It's like me when I realized that my wife wasn't the person that was making me feel bad, it was me in my head. I had to take it on the chin that all the other years that I've been complaining about making me feel annoyed was a load of rubbish. Yeah, I'm gonna put my hand up and go, I'm sorry, I'm a human being, I made a mistake. Now, I think if we can get a human being to that openness to say, look, what if you could see that all human experience is coming from the thoughts coming into your mind and how you think about them, and that consciousness activates that, being awake activates that, and your senses feel your thinking? That's it. And they go, well, how's that useful? I say, well, if you understand the next part of the jigsaw puzzle The next part is those thoughts change on their own and they leave, and then you have another one, and then another one, and it's like never-ending. Well, stop trying to manage it. If you just understand that it'll change on its own, you don't have to do anything.

I remember you saying when we were together, um, in one of the groups, you know, maybe thinking of your thoughts as clouds going over, and this will say, you know, that you can also— you get to choose which ones you concentrate on.

Yeah, I mean, if you want to, if you want to concentrate on any of them, you know, if you're feeling bad as a human being, now is not the time to try and analyze it, work it out. That's like going to create more rain clouds. Yeah, clouds being the metaphor for thoughts that we have. Every, every human being knows they have thought, um, they just a lot of the time have forgotten That's all. They've just forgot. Yeah, that they have thought, or they haven't seen that, like the weather thoughts. Sometimes we have dark thoughts. People even use language: I feel like there's a dark cloud over me. Well, there's a clue. Yeah, really? I saw red mist. You know, there's a clue.

I realize everybody, um, I know we said, you know, you can't necessarily stop the thought coming into your head, but it's having the ability to recognize it and say, oh, hold on a minute, you know, this isn't a thought that's going to be, you know, contributing to my, to my day. But I remember you encouraging us to ask people the question of, where is your experience of the world coming from? To just maybe understand where they're at.

Yeah, every time. So I would do that with every single client, no matter what the presenting problem, whether it was a CEO of a large organization saying, I'm freaking out right now, I don't know where we're going to get our revenue from. Okay, do you know where that freaking out is coming from? I would ask them, do you know where that experience of freaking out is coming from? And they might go, yeah, coronavirus, yeah, banks restricting money flow, yeah, people not paying their bills, that's where it's coming from. I'll go, no, it isn't where it's coming from. It's an impossibility. So it's really useful to ask a question and to see where a client sees their experience coming from. Now, I'm not saying that none of that stuff isn't happening. It's all happening. People are paying the bills, not having a job, whatever it is. I know that that's happening outside of you, but how you feel about it is down to what you think about it, what you think about those thoughts. And invariably, those unpleasant feelings are just feelings of insecurity. Insecurity coming from the thinking in the moment, and it's coming from our ego. It's coming from our intellectual mind trying to control shit. Look, we didn't see this coming. That's, that's a perfect example of how life works. We cannot predict the future, but we try with algorithms. You know, and we try and see what's up ahead so we can feel safer. I think everybody— if everybody could see that they started out winners, right? The sperm that won the race, right? They came into this world a winner, and there's been an intelligence nudging them to the point where they're still alive today. Everybody's got that available to them, and I love that. Yeah, so simplicity. Your feelings are coming from the thoughts flowing through your mind and all the thinking you're doing about those thoughts. It's a bit like some people bitch at the weather. Yeah, and other people go, fantastic, rain at last!

Good weather for ducks.

Exactly. So your sense of perspective on the unpleasant thoughts that you're having is really what will set you apart from the people that think themselves down. Yeah, into low moods, and then struggle, and then end up having to take medication because they, they haven't seen innocently, and no one has pointed out to them where their experience is coming from. It's coming from what? Happening up here.

Yeah. And, um, well, I remember when we, when we first sat down in a group and you did an exercise which I thought was, um, powerfully simple as well, is that actually you asked people about how fast their mind was revving or racing and actually went around and gave us a time, um, and then explained about the importance of, however it works for you, allowing your mind to settle And how would you explain that to people that are listening, especially the guys that are listening who probably at the moment— I mean, whether this is being listened to soon after it's released or, you know, years to come— but probably have got lots of things, you know, lots of plates spinning at the moment. How would you explain to them about understanding where your level of, of your mind revving and then trying to settle your mind?

Okay. All right. So again, because it's invisible, you have to use metaphors and analogies. You were saying revving. So let's use— everybody who's listening or watching this probably will have experienced going in a car at some point, on a bus or something. So basically, I'm using the speed of how fast a car goes as a sort of a metaphor to point to the speed of someone's thinking. Now, a lot of the time, if you ask people, do you think, they're going to go, yeah. I haven't met anyone that says, no, I don't think. I have some people say, I have thoughts, but it's the same one every day. Even though we have 60,000 to 90,000 thoughts a day, they go, yeah, it's the same one over and over. Where I'm going to get my next drink from, or whatever. It could be an unpleasant, or it could be like, what am I going to do next to relax more? You know, so, um, so what I would use with a client who has anxiety— what I've seen with anxiety, it's a symptom of a revved-up mind. And we can only experience anxiety if we go off into an illusory future, because the future doesn't exist. We only have today. And tomorrow, if we have the same conversation, I would say, well, this is today, now, living in the now. Yeah, so we're living in the now, we're in the moment, we're always in the now, but a lot of the time we're not in the now in our heads. We're up in the future, scaring ourselves. Oh, what if I don't get another job? What if I can't pay the bills? What if I can't eat? What if I can't get toilet paper? So then they scare themselves into rushing to the shops to get bog roll.

Yeah.

And they look, and the part of the brain is looking for evidence and sees all the shelves are empty. It's true! So, so people inherently don't see that the future— that is all fear coming from thoughts.

That's all.

So the more of that you do, the worse it's going to be for your biochemistry, for your body, for your well-being, because it's not healthy to, to have all that adrenaline rushing through your bloodstream because you've, you've scared yourself. So I would sit and say to a client, I say, I want to get a sense of what speed your mind is running at right now. Okay, so let me give you a benchmark. Yeah, um, I would say most people who work 7, uh, 5 days a week, perhaps at the, a high percentage of people who work, you know, 9 to 5, 5 days, on a Friday go, thank God it's the weekend. I'm exhausted, and they need a couple of days to recover. Well, let's just say those people's minds are running at about 100 miles an hour, because at 100 miles an hour, after 5 days of that sort of thinking speed, rushing around constantly, work, work, work, yeah, emails, social media, kids, cooking, bills to pay, not realizing you're up in your mind By the weekend, they want to rest. They want to slow their mind down because they're really— everybody's just looking for peace of mind but might not know it. Yeah, that's at 100 miles an hour. Now, if they carried on at that speed of thinking and didn't have a weekend, and they went— they missed the weekend out and went for 14 days solid, they're almost to the point of exhaustion. 3 weeks, 4 weeks without any time off. They've had no time to settle their minds down. They start getting insomnia, anxiety, and rush, rush, rush at 100 miles an hour with no brake. That's why we have the weekends. It's a good way of slowing down. Now, you could probably go at that sort of speed for 3 months before you need a real holiday, 4 months. Now, there's people that have minds running at around 150 to 200 miles an hour. They can only go a day at that speed, and they get home and they flop down on that sofa. They're exhausted from all that thinking at 200 miles an hour. So they go to the bottle of wine. I just need something to feel better, right? Because their mind's been running really fast. If they went for a month like that without a day off, they'd end up having a nervous breakdown, probably. Yeah. Okay, because so they need something to slow their thinking down, or they're on— they're getting high levels of anxiety, so they, they burn out more quickly. Then there's the people that are running at 250 to 300 miles an hour. They're normally on medication and really just not in a good space. Yeah, really, really, really fast. Now here's the benefit of having an understanding that you can see where you're at. Now someone who's maybe going from 100 to 50, going in the other direction— my speed of my thinking is a lot slower, I get more done, I feel better, I don't have feelings of anxiety, I have more capacity and more clarity. How do I get slower? Recognizing how fast I'm going and taking my foot off the throttle. You see, because if I kept going at 200 miles an hour on a motorway in a car at 200 miles an hour, eventually the warning lights are going to flash up saying you're going to burn the engine out. Now, a lot of human beings don't listen to that.

Warning signs.

The warning signs are the feeling states that you have. Anxiety is connected to the speed of your thinking. That's it. The insecure thoughts overwhelm. So the body anxiety— because I've had anxiety and been in hospital thinking I was having a heart attack. That anxiety was a gift. It was almost like informing me, hey, Dave, take your foot off the throttle, chill out for a few hours or a day or take a week off, and then you'll be back again. But if I didn't listen to that, guess what? I thought I was having an attack. So I overrode it. Now, what happens after anxiety for a lot of people, their body can't cope. So another state kicks in, and that would be for a lot of people I hear, and studying the work of Dr. Bill Pettit as well, who's a principal teacher, has mentored and trained by Sydney Banks back in the day. He talks about, well, then the next stage is you don't want to get out of bed. If you're not going to listen to the anxiety, you're overriding all of that and keep thinking, thinking, thinking. You end up depressed. Yeah, because what a great way to stop thinking. You go, just don't feel like doing anything. So what if we could be aware at the speed of our thinking? Well, at 50 miles an hour you have more clarity, but you know, when you get to 25, that's where the real beauty of life shows up. And I was very fortunate that Learning hypnosis showed me a way to almost put myself into that trance-like state.

Right, so that's how you would get from, say, 50 or 100 down to 50, down to 25?

It was in the beginning. I would use like formal self-hypnosis. I'd stare at a spot on the wall and go into relaxed soft eyes or peripheral vision, and then maybe some background music. And that's one way. Some people would find that really irritating. Meditation, but they're very much doing. You have to do stuff. Yeah. What, what happens is when we start to calibrate and work out where we are in terms of our own speed of mind, what we have to do is make a decision that I'm not prepared to accept a busy mind anymore, especially after this experience when we're all let out of our homes again. Yeah, yeah.

We—

do we really want to go back into the noisy world, or do we just want to live in a space where we just have less on our minds, more peace of mind. Because I tell you what, the world would perform better. Sports people would perform better with less on their mind. We see all the evidence in people who are at the top of their game. They don't think their way to high performance. They're in flow. Flow state is just in the moment. Yeah. Being guided by wisdom and intelligence, a feeling. You can only have that if you're not anxious, that feeling good, because you can't have two feelings at the same time.

I was just, I was just going to say, it's that example of being, let's say, Cristiano Ronaldo. He's about to take a free kick. If you're spending all your time thinking about how you're gonna twist your ankle and turn this, but actually just having the understanding that you have that capability and just going to flow state.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure if we were to interview him, he wouldn't be standing at a penalty spot thinking, oh my God, my mother's watching this, what happens if I miss? Or, oh my God, all my supporters need me, you know, because we want to pick up the cup today, it's the last shot of the match, what happens if I miss, they're going to lynch me.

Yeah.

Or my, my teammates won't get their win bonus. So that's the difference between someone in flow who has no thought, just focused, one spot, they only see where they're putting the ball and they even probably see it in the back of the net already. Before they've even kicked it, to the other inexperienced, or someone gets wrapped up in their thinking. That'll affect— they might both score, right? But I promise you, the person who hasn't got a lot of thinking, is in flow state, is going to enjoy the experience far more.

I remember reading about, um, to use the kind of sport analogy, about a table tennis player who said, you know, when you're playing so quickly, you haven't got time to be thinking, oh, I'll do a backhand, a forehand, or this, a spin of that. It's— it just happens through And again, what we're going to touch on is that happens because of practice, practice, practice. And therefore, I guess, would you say for the average guy listening that, that you can't just set up your mind like that to start with? Maybe it takes practice to work what, um, find what works for you.

Okay, that's a really good question. Um, You could practice, but I think what happens was when people have a defining moment, when they actually see where their experience is coming from, then they're good to go, right? Because they have— they've, they've seen truth and they automatically find a way to dial it out. Okay, so to step back from their experience. So let me give an example.

Sure.

So as opposed to doing— and it's just a realization, having a realization that my feelings are coming from thought in the moment, that's it. Yeah, I was standing by the kettle. I've told this story many a time, and, and I was furious at my wife. You know, this was in the early stages of coming across this understanding. I hadn't actually— I'd heard people talking about it as we are having a conversation about, well, where's my experience coming from? And people go, well, it comes from the inside, and it comes via these three principles called mind, consciousness, and thought. And all feeling states are created by these three principles. And I'm hearing it again. What's he talking about? Don't understand it. Read books on it, listen to CDs, even listen to Sid. But my wife got it instantly. So there's a difference between my wife, no practice at all, wasn't practicing to quiet my mind. She watched a video and heard, oh my God, we experienced the stories that we made up in our head. Instantaneously, she had a quiet mind. Yeah, because the story fell away. So she had a real-time realization, like wearing, you know, what comes to mind, where this came from, virtual reality goggles, standing on the penalty spot at Wembley with 100,000 people cheering, to the stadium instantly being empty.

Yeah, everything drops away.

Dropped away when she saw that the stadium was made up, the noise was made up, it was just thought. Okay, so that would be an example of someone who didn't need to practice, and now she can catch herself because she said, I'm never wanting to go back to the stadium noise of all that noisy thinking. I like it when there's no one really, or just a few people in the crowd. Crowd. Yeah, well, how do you get there? Well, she just learned— she just— it just— it just— I guess through deduction and realization, it was just like, oh, I just need to not get wrapped up in that inner voice. Or, oh, I've noticed that when I have a really unpleasant thought about another human being, I just let it go and it changes. Yeah, so you work it out yourself. There's nothing to do. But some people, you can share with them that the experience is coming from thought, they, they get it logically, but they haven't really got it. And if I give you an analogy of that, if I had a hot stove here and there was a flame, it was gas, and I turned it on full and there was a flame coming out, and I put my hand on it and it burnt me and it really hurt, and I turned to you and I said, what's the cause of that? You could tell me, right, I've burnt my nerve endings and the pain's excruciating, and it's because that you have millions of nerve endings and, and your brain gets a signal. And you could give me the technical explanation, as much as I'm giving the technical explanation of where our feelings come from— thought in the moment— and that, and it's transient and it changes. I can give you all the logic. The next time you kind of put your hand on the stove, if you haven't really got a realization, you're just gonna get the pain again.

Yeah.

A real realization, understanding of truth is going, my God, it's true. If I take my hand off, I don't feel any pain. Someone who gets it intellectually go, I know why it's hurting, the nerve endings are burning, but what do I do?

Yeah, I'll keep doing it.

I'll keep doing it. What do I do? I'm going, well, you got to work it out for yourself. And then they go, eventually they might through practice of putting their hand on the stove and going, I don't like it anymore, go, oh, that's a better solution. Now, how do you get them to take their hand off the stove? How do you get someone to take their foot off the throttle when their mind is going at 200 miles an hour? How do you get someone to see that their experience is transient and they won't feel depressed forever if they could just stop putting their hand on the stove of their thinking so that they're thoughts did what they needed to leave, let them go. Yeah. Then you have more capacity for feeling better about life. So, you know, someone does you anything you don't like, like my experience with my relationship, learning that me not forgiving an argument or an experience in the relationship would be basically my own self-torture. And why would you do that?

Yeah, why put yourself through it?

Well, how do I realize that? I realize, oh, all those unpleasant thoughts that I have, I was just indulging them. I was like feeding them, and they were getting fatter in my mind and staying around. So when we have a fear like job loss or the future that isn't going to help you. Don't care how you frame it, fear is not going to be your best friend when it comes to getting stuff done. Knowing that that is just thought will save you.

It's again going back to what we said earlier, it's so eye-wateringly simple once you get it, whether it's through practice or a instant hit. And if it's an instant hit, then you're— maybe you're very lucky.

Um, yeah, yeah, my wife was lucky. You see, I've been in development for 20 years, Anthony, up until that point, or slightly longer than 20 years, and I was extremely pissed off because she hadn't read any books on personal development, never done any NLP, hypnosis, or coaching training, hadn't mentored anybody, watched a simple video where the guy goes, oh, by the way, did you know You write the scripts of your own dramas. You're the characters in your movie. You're the scriptwriter, the editor. Consciousness brings the movie alive like a 3D IMAX experience, and you made it. Oh, by the way, you're the viewer as well of your own stories. And then boom, she changes. And I was so annoyed because, you see, I didn't get it. I was like, how come you— you're sitting like an enlightened Buddha on a cloud next to me And I'm sitting there really pissed off because I've been doing this for 20-odd freaking years and I don't get what he's saying, this bloke in the video. It just didn't make sense. And it was about 3 months before I had my standing by the kettle moment where I had my first realization where Anna had gone out. I was furious at her as I'm pouring this cup of tea, moaning at something, and then I realized I'm cross at Anna and she's not here. That for me was life-changing. Yeah, because I saw from the intellectual understanding, oh, how we all feel our thinking, to the, oh shit, it's true. She— I'm annoyed and she's not even in the room, so it can't be her that's making me annoyed. I'm making myself annoyed. I'm winding myself up.

I'm doing it myself.

Yeah, it was epiphany. It seems so— there'll be people watching this going, is that it? Yeah, and I was going, I understand what you're saying.

What I love about the simplicity of it is, is not just how you can apply it to the rest of your life, but actually, um, for our, our closest relationships. And I think for a lot of people, especially at the moment where we're going to be stuck at home with kids, partners, maybe parents, etc., is that, you know, what you taught me was you understand that you might have those, you know, you might get pissed off.

Yeah.

But, but it's realizing, oh, hold on a minute, you know, it's not— it might be an action that they've done has led me to allow myself to be pissed off, and it's okay to do that. But it's having that understanding of, hold on a minute, I'm pissed off, I don't need to stay in this state.

That's it. Yeah. So because that's— because that's human, you're being here. We're not trying to create people that have to manage their emotional state for the rest of their lives and never be pissed off, because that's not being human. However, Here's something that's really powerful to see with this understanding. When you understand where your experience is truly coming from, from whatever you're doing up here in that moment, even if someone's having a go at you, what this understanding does is as you feel the urge to want to shout at someone, moan, complain, whatever it is, whatever behavior you do when you feel annoyed, or pissed off or irritated or whatever word you want to put around a feeling. This understanding, when the feeling comes, it's a barometer, and that feeling is informing you of the quality of your thinking in real time. So what seems to happen is, like, we haven't had an argument. We've been in lockdown. This is day 13 for us because Claudia's school was shut down before everybody else's school.

Yeah.

So we have literally been to the shops once, and apart from walking and exercising every day, we haven't had an argument. And I'm starting to see that the environment, the weather system that you have in your family system, is really crucial for having more joy. And also the understanding buys time between feeling and action. Pissed off? Gah! It's thought again, it's me. Even though they are annoying, or you might get annoyed, and it's okay because if everybody understands, oh, Dad's just having a thought-created experience and he's just got a little bit up in his head, a bit irritated. What's wrong with painting on the carpet? So, oh God, I've just got insecure because I'm now gonna have to look at a horrible carpet, and then I'm going in my head, what will 'What will people think?' I'm like, 'Well, who cares? No one's coming around.' Yeah, you see what I mean? How we can make up a story and instantaneously feel bad.

That's it. It's a great example of— especially, I mean, we've got little children. I mean, one's only 6 months old, so he's not really causing much havoc at the moment, whereas, you know, Hudson being nearly 3 is into everything. And yeah, you have those those moments where you feel like you're about to flare up, especially because a lot of people are working from home, and that creates its own challenges because a lot of us don't have a, a good little area. I'm lucky that I do have some options, but a lot of people have been forced to work from home, so therefore you don't have an office space. And I guess for people watching and listening, that's one of those powerful things, is if you can understand this, it will make your home life I say— I nearly said beautiful. Let's just say better.

Yeah, I think if you can take away the bad weather in a family system— that's my metaphor for saying the clouds are coming with everybody. There's 4 of you in a 2-bedroom flat, or 5. One of our friends is— there's 6 people, 4 in one bedroom and 2 in another in the flat. With two neighbors down with COVID-19, right? So how would they get through this better with this understanding? I think that they'll start to see that you can only feel bad, um, if you have drops in consciousness, if, um, you get wrapped up in your thinking and then full of judgment. And with the understanding, it's almost like allows the clouds to clear more quickly in the family environment, because people become— as long as not As long as the whole family system isn't in a low mood and it's just one person, say, in a low mood and the rest are feeling all right. Yeah, you'll tend to find that with groups of people. One's in a low mood, three are okay. And if the three that are okay don't have the understanding, that one can bring them down. But if three in the house have the understanding and one doesn't, or everybody does and they just lost their bearings, these three become more compassionate more loving when someone's having a go at them. So for example, if I'm having a bad moment, I think in the last 14 days I woke up one day and I was just— things weren't working, technology was breaking, ads on Facebook went just crazy, and we were doing really well, and then we looked and none of the data had gone into our system. So people went, I was like, I spent money for nothing, and I I got pissed off. Yeah, I was like, it's hard enough as it is without wasting money at the moment, you know. And I lost my bearings. And Anna came up and said, here's a cup of tea, just sit down there. Do you want a biscuit? Well, I don't know if that's a good thing, not being able to go down the gym. But anyway, what happened was she didn't react to it in the way she used to, or the way I would have used to. And that would be, why are you so miserable about it? We've all got to do this together. And get affected by my bad mood and probably fan the flames. Absolutely. Piss petrol all over it. So, so now what happens is it's like she brings a bucket of water and puts it out. Yeah, with love and understanding. Um, that's all you need.

Talk to me about George Pransky, or Dr. George Pransky.

George.

How did you even— I mean, because he's someone that you're obviously lives in another country, but you're very close to, I guess, now. So how did that even start for you?

So anyway, the story was that Anna watched him on this video explain about how we create these stories in our head, and we're the scriptwriter, the editors, we're the special effects and with the audience as well and the characters. And she had this epiphany by listening to that, not from what he said, but from what she realized from what he'd said that triggered a new thought. The new thought was, oh, I've always had this story since I was 12. Oh shit. So she'd been living out this story in her mind about how relationships worked, and it fell away. And we went from being going over a cliff nearly to in a totally different direction together again. It's amazing. Well, I'd watch— and I'd watched George's videos, and then I bought his book, and I read his book, The Relationship Handbook. And I have to say, I got to the end of it, I was like, I'm still pissed off, doesn't— hasn't worked. Okay, um, then I got this online course. Anna did it. She's still— she transformed even more. And I still didn't get it. Yeah, until I had my kettle moment when she was out and I was making a cup of tea. Then I was like, oh my God, everything he said is true. So that was my epiphany, my— I guess the first defining moment. So he was putting on an event. George is— I think he's 80 this year, and he hasn't been very well. But, um, 7 years ago— what was it, 8 years ago? Losing track of time. I got on a plane to Seattle and went over and did a professional training retreat with him. And during that, on the third day, I had such a profound experience during a conversation with Dr. Bransky. Out of 55 people in the room, he'd asked me to sit next to him and have a conversation about the inside-out nature of life, reality, and how we show up. And I didn't think I had any problems at that point. My life was coming back together. I felt good about things. But anyway, I volunteered, had a conversation, and my whole world changed in a conversation. That's what— it was so profound.

Do you mind me asking what it was?

Yeah, uh, I don't know what the new thought was. Um, all I can tell you is that I felt amazing after a conversation in front of a room of people. And it was the metaphor I use to best describe what happened is that I thought I was doing okay, been in the industry for quite some time. Anna and myself, we were back on track. I'd seen a little glimpse of the inside-out nature of life. I'm having a chat with this old guy who's got a reputation of being the greatest psychological mind alive, a cross between Albert Einstein and William James, the founder of psychology. I'm having a chat about Muhammad Ali.

What?

He starts talking about Muhammad Ali. I had no idea where the conversation was going. It was all filmed, and I— and there was an audience watching. And the next second, something happened inside my mind. It was like someone switched on the light. And it felt like it had a chainmail. You know chainmail? They wear them to shark diving to stop your arms, or back in the day.

Yeah, is it the knights?

Medieval knights and Knights of the Round Table. Well, I felt like I had a full chainmail suit removed.

Wow.

But I didn't know it was on. It was just profound tears. The next thing, I hallucinated like a boa constrictor. Coming out of its skin, which is a metaphor for, I don't know, shedding, shedding a skin, shedding the, the body armor, the bodysuit of armor that effectively I'd had to protect me from feeling bad about the outside world, because that's where I thought it was coming from. So I had this, yeah, I had this, um, you couldn't get through to me. —yeah—in the same way as you can now without it. I felt lighter, and I'd realized— the realization that came just probably, I don't know, almost at the same time was I've been living in a feeling of stress since I would have been 8 years old, which was around the time my parents divorced. And, um, I think I'd taken a lot of responsibility onto my shoulders as a story, and I don't know what happened, it just went away. And George, at the end of that, we had a conversation. He said, I'd like to take you under my wing. I think you've got leverage and could take this understanding out into the world. So I was extremely honored and privileged to be mentored by George. Spending weeks at a time living with him and his family, Linda and two daughters, working with them. And, um, yeah, George is all right. He's in isolation at the moment.

Yeah, with Linda. I guess that insight that you had, and as you, as you described it, is having taken the kind of the chainmail off of you, you can't put a price on that.

No. No, whatever I've paid, I'd pay it 10 times over, and that's 6 figures. I've invested a lot of money traveling to and from America. Best, best thing I ever did in terms of relationship, my kids. If I didn't teach, if I didn't train coaches right now, if I didn't work one-to-one with clients and I decided I want to retire, um, I'd be grateful to the day I die that I came across, or I got woken up to this truth.

Um, that's how I feel that I came to your event.

I know, I'm very grateful that you shared that. And I know you've mentioned it to me before. It's really funny because I just go, well, I forget that I didn't have this understanding 8 years ago, even though I've been in the game for 30 years. Yeah. And I forget that I wasn't awake to it. So when I share it with people like yourself, and then you see and you have a different relationship with life and your personal reality— because we're all walking around in our own personal reality— when you share that, I'm like, God, everybody should know this. Yeah, isn't it amazing? That's one of the big—

and I mean, it's a, it's a nice frustration— is that As you say, you can't make someone see this. They have to see it themselves. Maybe you can help facilitate it by metaphors, stories.

What we're doing, Anthony, is we're using words to point to something. I love this metaphor that I heard many years ago, and, and I see it more. So, and it's this, it's like most of the human race are looking for their keys outside underneath a lamp that's lit up at night. They're looking for their keys outside under the lamp. Yeah. And they'll continue to look outside like most human beings look outside of themselves to feel better about what it is that they're going through, like, you know, drugs or alcohol or medication to feel better about life. So they're looking outside. So human beings are looking outside of themselves for the answer to be happy, you know, have a happier, more joyful life, right? But if the keys are in the drawer in the kitchen, you can look outside all your life, but you're never going to find your keys out there. And unfortunately, that's where I was pointing people. Technique, tapping, spin the thought, manage your thought, you know, put yourself in a peak state and slap your chest and jump up and down and do yoga, meditation. Well, you know, some, some of that stuff you might enjoy, but that isn't going to change your experience. What changes your experience is just how you think.

I always think that— I think that the thinking, having— as it is the only real part, because you can have all your tools and techniques and tricks and etc. But they're all kind of noise around the truth, if that's a good way of putting it.

So look, I'll put it this way. I'm not saying any of those things are bad. Me too. You did them for years, really useful. Yeah, I could use hypnosis right now to help someone with pain. I'm not going to stand and have a long, drawn-out conversation about the nature of life and how thoughts create feelings and suffering. If they're suffering and I can use a quick technique, why not? Sure. Okay, but preferably I'd love to have a conversation with someone about the inside-out nature of where their experience is coming from via these simple things like called thought and thinking, and for them to see that, because that's going to set them up better for life than just fixing a little bit of discomfort.

Now, if we were trying to— um, no, let's start again. If a guy was looking to understand a bit more about this, um, your book Joyride. Yeah, tell me more about it.

Well, that, that's funny because I wrote that 2 years ago, and when I look at it now, I'm like, oh, I need to think about writing a follow-on from that. Yeah, maybe. Right, so Joyride, um, One Life, Three Principles, Infinite Potential was actually— I went on a road trip in 1993 from Miami to Key West in a Mustang. So stereotypical American road trip in a red Mustang. And it was a, it was a great holiday, and lots of things happened on that holiday that I used it as a metaphor, a journey from Miami International Airport all the way through the Keys, from Key Largo all the way down to Bahia Honda to Key West. And each chapter is one of the islands on the way down to the southernmost point of the United States, where I have a conversation on that island with the, the passenger— that would be the reader. And all I'm doing is I'm pointing to this understanding using stories as best I can.

Yeah, um, so I was very fortunate.

It won Spiritual Book of the Year last year, and, um, 2019, um, and also a category, I think 9 categories on Amazon, number 1. So we brought it out 2 years ago. It's a good place to start if people want to sort of dip their toe into this world, or they can go to my website and stuff like that.

Yeah, I'll tell you what I think about this book. I've read quite a few personal development books, and some of them, I think the good ones, you need to read more than once. Because you read it and you think, oh yeah, I got that. And you might go back a week or a month or sometimes 2 years later and you reread it and go, hey, oh, I must be reading a different book because I guess you've changed over time. And that's why I think about Joyride, you know, we're, you know, we're constantly changing as people. So it's not a book that you read and go, oh yeah, got it, cheers. It's read it, go away and let it sink in, and maybe come back to it.

Yeah, as I do to Sid Banks's material or George's material, you know. Um, I listen— I've listened to one of Sid's audios, Sid Banks. Bruce Diekmann was the theosopher and philosopher, a theosopher who had an enlightenment experience. He wasn't a well-educated man, and yet he saw something so profound. It's like Einstein's theory of relativity.

Is it '73 he had that insight?

Uh, 1973, yeah. So he worked in a mill, Sydney Banks, well, the 9th grade education, and one day had a, had a profound 2-second enlightenment experience where he saw that the world was struggling with its mental health in a lot of places because they were looking for the keys outside. Yeah. And he saw that there were 3 simple— well, it was actually 1 principle to the human experience, but to make it easier for us people who like to overcomplicate things, he broke it down into 3. So he's like, why would I make— why would I give you more when there's less? But here, look, this will make it easier for you. So this, this 9th grade educated guy started teaching psychologists and, and people in the helping professions like psychotherapists who really struggled with their clients because they're having counseling for 5 years and they're still depressed. And yet here is this welder who worked in a mill doing little chats in the evening to anybody that's struggling, and those people were getting better when he was just pointing out what we've been doing our best to point to in this conversation. So I'll listen to Sid over and over. So last 8 years, oh my God, every week I'm listening to Sid and I hear the same audio and I go, he didn't say that before. I could recite it word for word, it's only 20-odd minutes, and yeah, I'll hear it, something profound will happen, I'll have another realization about what what he's pointing to. It's just profound. It makes for a better life when you know where your experience is coming from. So for example, like during this current crisis, I've caught myself a couple of times going down the slippery slope, you know, of my thinking, and then I'm so grateful, you know, I don't need to do that.

That you can just have— you can stop yourself and have that time. Yeah, yeah, most of the time.

When I first started, a bit less often, and who knows. And then who would think that you could sit and experience not knowing how your business is going to be in 3 months from now, how the world's going to be, the economy. You could think up bad things, not bad things. You can use your imagination to pretty much scare yourself to death, or you could just not do any thinking and go, hey, today's a great day, the birds are out, I'm breathing air, we're alive.

What I, what I love about all this is firstly, I, I feel I have the understanding, you know, there's, there's levels of, uh, is deepness a word? Anyway, it doesn't matter. But I, I feel like it's impacted my life massively and, um, the way I act, the way I coach other people, the way I, um, treat those around me and my relationships. I'm always wondering how we can apply this to the Whole Man Academy and the guys listening, the guys reading our e-letter, especially now that for the next, let's say, at least 3 months, there are— I'm pretty sure there won't be any actual live events anymore. Um, so that's what I was trying to wonder is, you know, how do we help guys see the truth, or at least point them in the right direction?

Well, number one, like we said earlier, they've got to want to You tend to find people are suffering, are seeking, looking. If people are joining the, the, the list of Whole Man Academy, I guess they've joined for a reason, apart from your mum and dad.

Yeah, probably supporting. My mum unsubscribed an email this morning.

She goes, oh, I love your email on Sunday. I'm like, Mum, it's gone to the help desk. The team had to send it to them. So, but you know, you know what I mean. The people that join this Holeman Academy to support you. We're all probably seekers at some level. They probably wouldn't show up if they were good to go with life unless they want to be in service to other people. So you tend to find that if people are struggling or they want to look in a different direction to perhaps the direction they've been looking at when it comes to their mental health— so I was looking at the keys outside fixing, hypnosis, NLP, which are really powerful modalities and useful, to looking in a totally different direction— simplicity, um, being, not doing anything, not having to intervene, and a deeper level of understanding about the nature of the human experience, as opposed to fixing. You're broken, let's get you feeling better, let's change that. Which invariably won't work because if they haven't seen where their experience is really coming from, the next time they have a different contextual problem, they'll be back to the doing. Yeah. And with this understanding, it's— so for anybody watching, it'd be like, get the book. I don't know, listen to you, your podcasts, uh, anything that you do in terms of the principles. And, and go on to YouTube and listen to the work of Syd Banks. Or George Pransky. And if people are looking at, you know, getting into this as a career, now is a good time to be learning. Yeah, so, um, yeah, they can go to the website. There's, I think there's a, there's a free coaching video where you can see this, the power of this understanding in a simple conversation affect somebody who'd been up in their head and really busy for months and months and she changed in 30 minutes and then gave the follow-up video a few days later. And then there's also a complimentary webinar on there for people interested in coaching, learning about that.

That's, that's great. So I want to make sure that for the people that are on our, uh, e-letter, that, um, prior to or around this episode going out, we'll send them all the—

all the— sure, yeah, I'll put a little note so make sure you get that, but all the links they need.

And I appreciate— we really appreciate your time. I mean, I— this sounds, uh, pretty silly, but I actually get quite emotional sometimes when I talk to you because, um, because I know how life-changing it can be when you're around the right people. Yeah. And you have a calming effect. And, you know, I'm very grateful to have spent that week at Networth House with you. It was, uh, it was a special experience.

And I can't believe your sister lives a few doors down from my mum.

Yeah, yeah, it's Emma's, uh, what is it, Emma's mum. I mean, you couldn't make that up, that lives down the same road. Yeah, lives down the same road as your mum. It's, uh, funny how the world works. Yeah, well, we always like to, um, finish with a question which is about, um, What advice, um, would you, Dave, give to a man who's trying to do life better?

Hmm, well, the first thing that popped to mind, it was like, really, stop trying to do life better, was the first thing that came into my mind. And instead of doing anything, if you could learn to be present as a man. Um, let's put it in the context of my own personal relationship with my children and my wife and other people, clients. What I found was prior to coming to this understanding, I wasn't present. I was doing— trying to do life better. So I was running around trying to prove tech, you know, find techniques, goal setting, you know, staying in a peak state. You know, put 100% energy into doing life better. Um, that's tiring, and there's only so— like, only a certain amount of time that you can do that before you're exhausted. Um, like, bears hibernate for a reason. So I think for men to do stuff better is just to enjoy this moment. Yeah, more. So in the context of my personal relationship, the reason we probably nearly ended off going off a cliff in terms of marriage, one of the main reasons is because I was never present. And when you're not present, you can't connect. So if you, if you're up in your head You've been with people, everyone's been with someone that they're not really there. Yeah, but they're right in front of you, you have the chat, you're like, oh, they're off in their head and they're not really interested in what you're saying and they're not engaged and connected. Because not about— and sometimes people say that's disrespectful, but it's not about that, it's just they've just drifted off into la-la land in their mind, that's it. So they're not present. Well, I was that guy most of the time. Thinking of the next question to ask a client before they'd even finish the sentence or the answer to the previous question. So there's an example of not being present. Or my wife saying, or doing, can you do so and so and so? So I'll go, so sorry, sweetheart, what was it you said? When I'm right there, you're not listening to me again. So from a, from a relationship point of view, the minute I started getting present, the minute I started getting present in my marriage, things improved. Kids used to come when I was up in my head thinking about work, and they go, Daddy, Daddy, can you have a look at this? And I have a look at this, and I'm like, oh yeah, show me, darling, show me, darling. Yeah, yeah. And I'm thinking about work. I'm not really present. The kids would walk off. They were just— they know. Yeah, they know when you're not present. So I started being more present with them. What did I do? I didn't do anything apart from just bring my focus and attention to to them and maybe practice that.

That sounds like a good one.

Yeah. And client relationships improved, relationship improved with my wife, my kids' relationship improved. Now I can be present most of the time.

I think especially whilst more of us are at home— I mean, we touched on earlier that a lot of people are working from home. It is tough when you haven't got your set boundary. You know, when you're out and you're at the office, you're working, and you're, you're not dad at the office, or you're not partner. You are you working. But when you're at home, it's, it's can be hard for the kids also to understand. You know, if I come out my room and go and grab a coffee, I'll have Hudson going, Daddy, just come and play with me, let me show you this. And you're like, I, uh, but, but even you saying that made me think, you know, a little bit more of— instead of being busy being busy with your mind and actually just saying, right, you know what, you know, a couple of minutes, or explaining, I will.

Yeah, you know what you just said is so wise. When I first started, it was just a few minutes, you know, a few minutes of being present with your kids. Like yesterday, I was a little bit up my head thinking about stuff that I've got to get done And while the iron's hot, they say, I might as well create a new course. So yeah, yeah, I might as well. Got more time. I'm not going to be sitting on the beach for 2 weeks, and I'd drive myself crazy if I was playing PlayStation and stuff like that. I'm not that good at it, you see, and they keep beating me. But here's what I did yesterday. I said to my daughter, you know, I don't really play Fortnite, darling. You're going to teach me how to do it. I literally decided, that's it, I just want to be with— do you know how that set me up for the week. Yeah, that one hour, just me and Sarah, my other daughter was doing other stuff, has set me up for the week now with her because she's filled up with that presence, as opposed to the good old days. She'd be lucky if she got a minute from me in a week.

You dip in and out.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm obviously not delighted that that's how it used to be. But I'm so delighted that I know the difference between being present and not.

I guess hopefully for, for the— well, it doesn't have to do with just guys listening, but that's primarily our audience. Um, yeah, trying to slowly apply that to— let's start with your personal relationships, be it with your partner and/or parents and/or kids. Um, can be priceless.

Feels better as well.

Feels much better doing it that way. Yeah. Well, Dave, on that, another positive note of helping people, um, I'd like to say thank you for, uh, giving us your time on the podcast. One of the, one of the hardest, um, bits for me for the preparation of this is what— how to put it— what not to ask you, because there's so many kind of avenues we could go down to do with personal development and Tony Robbins and etc., etc. And life coaching. So maybe, maybe another time if we just talked about personal development at some point and your— and kind of the online courses would be, would be time well spent, I think.

Happy to, but anyway, if you ask me on camera now, so it's—

yeah, you definitely— you nodded.

Um, all right, well, Dave, I love this subject. It's a passion of mine. It's like Some people love train sets in the loft, you know, others like football. I just love seeing more about the human experience and helping people, and I love personal development back in the day, although I've stopped seeking now. I generally don't read many of those books now. This is so much simpler. That was fully enough.

Right, well, Dave, thank you very much, um, and we really appreciate it, and hopefully we'll see you on, on a podcast soon. Perfect. Thank you.