Who is in your team? If you're a leading man in your
family, in your business, in your life, you have to have a
team. And what we're going to talk
about in today's podcast is who is in our teams and what you'll
experience and what you'll hear as me and Paul, Oh my God, Pete,
me and Pete go through this. I don't know where that came
from. Me and Pete of course, through
this. You'll hear how how much
actually we've invested time, energy and relationship into
building out our teams to support us as phenomenal
leaders. And and my selfish desire that
you walk away from listening to this podcast today, thinking
about your team differently, treating yourself differently as
a man, as a leader, and you're going to get so much value from
listening in today. So, Pete, do you know?
Let's jump. Yeah, nuance.
Because when Ben brought this subject up to me, I immediately
thought, thought professional team, I was like, what?
You mean like my assistants, the guys and girls that are in my
team, my content, correct. And he's like, no, no, no, no,
no. Like your own personal team
absolutely goes into your professional too, but the team
that's backing you in life. Yeah.
And then I think that I naturally do this myself because
of my background. And I my background was in, I
started off as a an elite athlete and then I went into
coaching elite athletes. And part of my role as a
strength and conditioning coach was to build the team because I
was in the team. Like I worked with sprinters,
with golfers, with footballers and what I saw in professional
sport, which coaching originally came from was that people would
have a team. They'd have a nutritionist, a
physiotherapist, a psychologist, a psychotherapist, they'd have
elite sports coaches, would have technical coaches.
There would be such specialism in helping people go out on the
field or go on the track or go out onto the course in the best
place possible. And so it was a multi faceted
approach to helping someone perform.
But what I noticed when I got into, especially working with
people in life coaching and professional coaching,
leadership coaching, is that a lot of men specifically think
like along the lines of your typical man.
I don't need anyone else. I don't need help, I don't need
support. I can do it all myself.
And I think you're limiting yourself if you think like that.
Yeah, you, you freaking really are.
Just as Ben said, you think about the, the, the best
athletes in the world, think about, think about Ronaldo.
I was talking about when I last say what a role model as a man.
And he, because he, he's, he's actually just stepped onto
YouTube and he's, I think it's, I'm sure he's got like
55,000,000 subscribers in the first couple of weeks.
It's crazy how, how his subscriber count.
He's like blowing everyone else out the water.
And I watched one of his videos. He's done a quick interview of
Rio Ferdinand and I, and I watched it and I was like, what?
What a specimen of a man. But here here's a guy who who is
at the the peak in, in most facets, as as a father, as a
husband, as a player, as an athlete in in all, but he's got
teams behind him like he's got the best coaches in the world
behind him. That's that see him performing
at his elite levels. Yeah.
And, and what I wanted to do with talking through this is, is
not to impress you as a listener to, but but to impress upon you
the levels that I've gone to personally to invest in my what
I would call a social support network.
My, my network that keeps me functioning at an optimal level
that I, you know, often when I'm working with someone as well, I
will share this network. But I thought, you know, why not
just share it on the podcast? Because I selfishly really want
more people to behave like me in this in this way, because I've
seen so many men struggle through life thinking that they
don't need to go to someone, they don't need help, they don't
need support. And what I want to use the same
as what I have. I, I spend very little time with
problems. I close the gap on problems so
damn darn fast that I move through things quickly.
So even I do come up against the inevitable blocks in business,
in life, in marriage, in in injury, whatever it is, I'm
quick to engineer a support system to get me through it
quicker. And I think that's what you need
as a leader. So what we're going to do is
we're going to talk about our 10, the 10 people we recommend
or I recommend Pete recommends, talk about our experience.
We're also going to name drop and if we put someone's name in
the podcast, we'll put them in the the show notes as well so
you can go and access them as well.
Pete, do you want to share anything before we get going on
this one? No, absolutely not.
And just if the guys and girls names aren't there for whatever
reason, just message one of us and we'll we'll we'll ping you
their details. But like here's a like prime
example. I was just chatting to Ben
before the pod started. Is that last night I'd done
myself an injury at jiu jitsu. I thought I'd cracked a rib.
I don't think it is. It's more like muscular damage
between my ribs. But I had two, two guys who are
essentially professionals in this field reach out and say,
Pete, this is probably what's happened.
So it gave me way more awareness around it.
And here and here's here's like some protocols for you to go and
do right because I and like, so these, these are guys that are
just in my corner and rather than me dealing with this on my
own, go, oh great, I've got a fucking cracked rib or or
whatever for the next four to six weeks.
How am I going to how am I going to recover quickly?
I've already got guys in my corner, essentially my coaches
going to Pete. This is what's happened.
This is what you need to do. This is how you're going to
you're going to heal quicker rather than dealing with it on
my own. Yeah, and even like, so Pete's
thinking about physical injury, mind's marital conflict.
You know, I'm going to talk about people that we've got on
our corner. I'll talk very openly about
that. You know what we're like on on
the podcast and like the people that I've gone to and I'm having
those people in my corner has meant that I've been able to
sort my head out before having conversations with Poppy.
Now, what is interesting on on this podcast, I'm not going to
be talking about having you partner in your team.
We could do a whole different podcast on how to create your
relationship to help you and be more of a team.
That could be a whole different podcast.
These are external contractors, coaches, consultants, supporters
that you bring in. You often pay, but we're also
going to give you some definitions as well because
sometimes it can get a little bit lost, like who do I need?
So let's dive in Peaks. I think it's going to be a the
first one we've got. I've got and is these are in no
specific order, is a psychotherapist.
So Pete and I both use the same psychotherapist to start off
with. I started psychotherapy when I
was struggling with some things in coaching.
So I was coaching with Yasin and he many times said you need to
get yourself a psychotherapist. And I didn't really get why he
kept on saying that, but he was playing the role of my mentor
and I was obviously slow in doing things because I had
material in my past that was stopping me from moving forward.
So he said, go and get a psychotherapist.
Go and get. Anyway, eventually I was like,
OK, I'm going to go and find a psychotherapist.
I found a guy called Tim Woodman had psychology of anger, an
incredible psychotherapist, like really, really good.
And it was online, It was in COVID.
And this is my opinion about why you need a psychotherapist,
because what happens is you cannot go forward fast if you've
got the handbrake up. So if your past is bringing
material into the moment that's stopping you from moving
forwards, you need a good psychotherapist to help you
remove that stuff. And that's why I, I'm a board
certified psychotherapist. A high, very experienced
psychotherapist is essential for a leader.
What? What's your take on that, Pete?
Yeah, just on that the other thing, because I too use the
same psychotherapist and Tim and I will continue to use him the,
the, the level of awareness and alternative opinion that he can
provide against your own is massively important for you to
wear. Ah, OK.
There's rather than me trying to figure this shit out on my own
in my own head with my own belief system, my own, my own
intellect. You've got someone else who's a
professional who's been in the game for a very, very long time,
seen thousands of people and can provide a very different level
of awareness to give yourself a different train of thought and
go, oh, OK, actually that's a fucking really great point.
Now I can maybe reframe that because I didn't have that
intellect before I spoke to said psychotherapist.
Yeah, I like brought Tims psychotherapy.
So a body based psychotherapy because us guys, we spend a lot
of times on our head a talk therapy.
It works to a degree like I've actually recommended people to
Tim and they've not enjoyed the body part.
But from what I understand and what I know about the body is
that there would be a a talk element that would last for
maybe 1020 thirty minutes and you'd be like, right, let's get
into body work. And you would.
It was so crazy how the thing that I was talking about
manifested in the way that I was moving or doing some of the
movements that you do with him. And it was just like game
changer for me. And so why do I think this is
important for someone to have in their team?
Because if you're reaching middle age 30 plus, you're going
to have had some levels of trauma, struggle, challenge,
whatever. You frame it as a guy that you
just need to get rid of, you need to let it go, let it, let
it pass, process it and move the fuck on.
And I think this is a problem with so many guys is we think
that we can do all of this stuff without external help.
And This is why I and I very, very frequently recommend a guy
called Tim, so a guy called Matt Gunn.
So I'm the awake man retreats. One of the things that we've
always said is that we wanted to have the best in the world, can
deliver the best sessions and give guys an experience.
And so we've had Matt Gunn come over to Pete.
If you want to talk about Crete, that would be really helpful.
Yeah, well, essentially when we some some of the retreats that
we do abroad, we will we'll go into some trauma work with guys.
It's because it's important. We need to uncover some of the
shit that we suppress some and sometimes those things that
we're suppressing has been there for 10/20 plus years, 30 years.
And it's important for us to move forward in life.
Like Ben said earlier, lift the handbrake up is that we need to
uncover that. And so, and, and some of the
deeper work that we'll do there, we'll have professionals like
Matt Gunn come over and use his, his work to release a lot the
trauma that's been going on deep inside.
Then the guys leave the retreat like free from that, the, the
hand breaks down and because of the other work that we do on
there, the accelerator's on. So you move forward in life way
way way faster. Yeah, I I totally agree.
So that's the first person, next person, I'm going to move on.
So psychotherapist, if you haven't got one, think about
that. I might be giving you some links
that the next one's a coach. And here's the difference
between a coach and a psychotherapist.
A coach obviously creates the future.
So my work as a coach, Pete's work as a coach.
I don't know if Pete calls himself a coach.
He is a coach. He's a phenomenal coach.
Shouldn't call yourself a coach? I don't really, but.
You don't really, but Pete is an amazing coach.
I'm an amazing coach. We help people create a vision
for the future and then operationalise that.
I turn that into step by step practices, habits, steps that
you can get there. And a really great coach is
about creating the future with someone.
And this is so important. Like people think that coaching
came from therapy, it didn't. It came from sports coaching.
It's about having a vision to win and like looking at how do
you make that work in terms of exercises, sessions, cycles and
programmes to help you get the win that you want.
So if you're a coach or if you're looking for someone to
help you create a a bigger vision for your future, a coach
is the person I would hire. Now, coaching comes in so many
different ways. In my opinion, if you can afford
it, pay for a coach if you can. Like obviously coaching for
free, I've done of coach clients for free.
There's not the same skin in the game.
Like honestly, this is something where if you want to create an
incredible future, I would say it's an imperative for a leader,
especially of a business into into the six figures.
If you, if you're running a business that there's over six
figures, you absolutely need a coach because it will shift the
way that you run that business exponentially.
The hour you spend in that coaching session will pay a
dividend back that is 10 times the amount that you're spending
in the coaching. Yeah, and, and, and sometimes
that, that 10X is a media. Other times that 10X is five
years down the line when you're, when you're like, do you know
what? What I, what that guy taught me
five years ago, I'm now actually ready physically, emotionally,
mentally to embody that. And then you and then you take
it on. Then it's like the, the results
you get from coaching is exponential.
It's like it's limitless. Yeah, I think that the, the,
the, the old school kind of style of coaching is like
one-on-one. It's in a, you know, on a call.
It's very like a safe container of time where you and your coach
go in to talk about you. But there's very many, like
there's many permutations. So in the awake man, Pete runs a
hot seat where you will coach. It's it's one-on-one coaching
done in front of a group of men. Now there's a difference with
that. There's a different charge
because you're there, you're you're being coached and the
commitment you make is is 10X it's it's charged with a lot of
what's the word for accountability.
And that's what I think how modern, more modern coaching
styles are moving because it's like when you make a commitment
in front of a group of men to go and do the things to make a
great future, it is super, super powerful.
So I think that's worth bearing in mind.
It doesn't have to be the old school.
You sit in a chair in front of someone.
There's so many ways this can be done.
And having a coach is just, you know, like I said, I think it's
an absolute essential in your team.
Yeah, yeah, And I think some of this just depends on where
you're at in life and and what's like next for you, because it
might be like, do you know what I, I want to do some work on my
relationships and maybe then there's a relationship coach or
it's like, do you know what actually I want to get back into
the like, I know dating coaching is now is now a bit of a thing.
And if you want to get back into the dating game, then maybe it's
a dating coach for like for me personally, I've been I've over
the last ten years have employed many mindset of business
coaches. That's the predominantly what I
have been employing is mindset and business.
Yeah, I am. Like I hired a coach a couple of
years ago and it was not last year, it was.
And I I the one thing I wanted to work through in that coaching
agreement was conflict. I what?
Which was what I help a lot of other people with when I coached
them, like marital conflict, relationship conflict, hard
conversations. Yeah, I just was getting in my
own way, in my own stuff, in my own relationship.
And I created an agreement with the coach.
I worked solely on being more, being way better in conflict
before I got married. And it was so, so important, so
helpful. So I that's a really, really
important move that you can make is like, there might be
something very specific that you want to work on.
And a coach can be the best person to work.
And that's the good thing about niche coaches, that they they
become very good at this very specific thing.
Yeah, and one, one of the most popular forms of coaching here
is fitness coaching, right Is like I I had a coach guy called
Tom Ford. I highly, highly recommend
TomTom coached me for eight or nine years and like through my
fitness jerk and I'm I'm fit. I've been fit for a long time.
I actually know what I'm doing, but I still have Tom as a coach
because he's just always, always kept me in check, kept me in
line, kept me accountable. Like he's like he's the expert
in that field. So when anything, whenever
anything came up to do with my diet or my nutrition or just
like I had niggle in my training or I had like he would be like,
right, Pete, change this or or or go down this route, do these
forms of stretching, whatever that looks like to make me to
essentially get me back up to where I should be or improve me.
I always had time in my corner to do that.
Yeah. I think, I think that's where
like I would say that's more of a trainer role.
I think a coach is more about extraction.
Like, I think that's something that you, I know we could get
into semantics a little bit as well, but I think what what you
can have with, especially with fitness, people's like a
prescription, they're constantly prescribing, you know, to do
this next say, oh, you OK, you need to do this.
And I think that's more of a trainer, a coach extracts like
asks great questions, guides you, leads you to your own
answers. And I think that's what you do
really well, Pete. I do well is that if you watch a
hot seat coaching session with Pete, he's not often telling
guys what to do. He's asking them questions,
leading them to the point where they actually think it's their
idea. And it's not that he's, you get
what I mean? It's not like, but he's like,
OK, well, you ask the obvious question.
They're like, oh, yeah. But because they come to their
own conclusion, they do the they make the change themselves.
And this is the difference between telling and guiding and
asking. And I think this is such an
important part for behaviour change.
So having a good coach who can coach is important.
OK, let's let's go to the next one.
A mentor. What's your experience of a
mentor? I've had mentors for years.
I would probably say Yazeen, who is Co founder of the Awakened
Man was probably my first mentor.
Yeah, my first like official mentor was, was Yazeen.
And I initially wanted Yazeen in my life to help you with my
business. And then it, it's like I soon
found out it wasn't as such about the business.
It was about everything else in life.
But really in, in a mentor, it's like you're looking at their
experience in what you are looking to achieve.
It's like they've not read a book and then are coaching you
on it. They've gone through the thing
they are experienced in doing that thing.
They have what you want. And then they are giving you
their their wisdom and their guidance and their knowledge on
how they have done that. Yeah, yeah, I think the
distinction here is that I, I don't think a coach has to
achieve, has to have achieved what you want to achieve like I
have. I have clients who make way more
money than me, but I can I can coach them because they're my
level of consciousness and my level of ability and
relationship and conflict is way sometimes supersedes that.
And equally, it's like Alex Ferguson didn't need to be a
better technician than Ronaldo to be able to coach him.
He just needed to be a great coach, whereas a mentor, I think
Pete's dead right there is that they have to achieve, have
achieved what you want to achieve.
I think that's how I see it. Like I see that the same thing.
So having a mentor, I know that chief talk about this is that
I've got a client I used to train in the gym and he had a
mentor, which was Bernie Eccleston.
So Bernie Eccleston, the owner of F1, the way that his
mentoring was set up was Bernie Eccleston would give him a phone
call, say meet me at this restaurant in Sydney, the New
York, Dubai, wherever F1 was. And I'll mentor you for that was
his mentoring. And he he flew across the world,
go to a, you know, swanky restaurant, have dinner with
Bernie and then come home. That was his.
And he would do it maybe once or twice a year.
That was how his mentoring was set up.
So don't get so confused that mentoring has to be like weekly
or, you know, on a call, I recently had a, a real estate
owner and he said, I'm actually Ben, I'm, you know, I know
you're my coach, but I'm looking for a mentor.
And I was like, go and speak to the CEOs of the best real estate
firms in Dubai and say, listen, you know, I've got a new company
I'm building it. Would you be open to mentoring
me? And sometimes you do actually
have to find these. And do you know what there is
actually a thing, especially for men where they want to have that
ability to pass on their knowledge to someone.
It's the, it's a give them back. So I think you can leverage that
a little bit because when someone's super successful, when
you show up as a start up as a new fresh faced person looking
to build your business and you're ballsy enough to go and
say, listen, like can you help me?
In my experience, there's always been a lot of good will placed
in those relationships as well. Yeah, I mentor a couple of guys
now. Yeah, like young, like younger
guys. I get, I, I get a lot of
fulfilment from it, right? And that's, and they've come and
they've asked. So yeah, like having mentors has
has been critical pinnacle in my in my personal growth.
Yeah, so that needs to form part of your team.
The next one is the way I'm going to say this is like a
physiotherapist, chiropractor massage, whoever that like
physical body work treatment, who's going to be the person you
go to and build a relationship with that starts to understand
and know your body. So I actually used to drive down
to Pete's house when when we were like doing days and I would
always go and see my chiropractor.
So like I had a chiropractor that I used to get to drive up
to my gym and fix all my clients because he's amazing.
And like in the whole of the UKI was willing to drive for four
hours to go and see a chiropractor, that he was that
good because he, I knew that I would spend money with him, he'd
fix me and then I would have success.
I'd feel better afterwards. And that's the level I'd been to
him for like 4 or five years and I'd not gone anywhere elsewhere.
Having like a physio, a chiro, a massage therapist.
I got a simple doctor stretch in the UAE.
It's amazing. Which is like a combination of
the three things together. Have that person in your team.
Because if you can't train, if you can't move, you've got back
pain, it's going to seriously inhibit your, your ability to
function as a guy. Like I think a guy needs to
train, needs to move, needs to do exercise as his biggest tool
for defending himself against ill health and I'll mental
health. So I think that's an important
one. Yeah, do you know what?
That's actually one that I'm lacking because literally
yesterday I, I picked up Leo from nursery and Leo holding my
hand and when he was walking with me, it was, it was hurting
because my ribs like him literally just holding my hand.
It was hurting. And I was thinking, do you know
if I, if I was just to get in a scuffle right now, I've
literally, this is from jiu jitsu, me learning how to fight,
I'd be next to useless because of my body's in bits.
So, yeah, actually that's an, that's an actual area that I
have not got in London is the team of yeah, chiropractor
physics that happened. I, I spent ages looking for one
in Dubai, I think spent the thick end of about 600, seven,
£100 before I found the right one.
I'd been to like 4 different. I went to an osteopath, went to
a chiropractor. I went to different ones a
couple of times. I felt no different when I
walked out to walk, when I walked in.
And then I found this one guy, he's from Cardiff really good.
And he just, yeah, I just immediately slightly sorted my
back out. So I think you've got to be
willing to, you know, go, you know, go through, kiss a few
frogs in so many words because that sometimes you might have
someone, they they could be highly qualified, they could
have a good track record, but you just don't gel with them.
I think with bodywork, it's just as important as the relationship
as it was with a coach where people don't often see it like
that. It's like I've had like I had
someone I went to in Cardiff and she was the, the GB physio and I
went in there in pain with my foot and I came out in more pain
and the, the pain never went. And like I was like, oh, she's
so good. She's so good.
And I'm like, well, she wasn't terrible for me.
But yeah, everyone else sang the praises.
So you've got to be able to find that right person.
But once you find that right person, be willing to do things
like freaking travel to get to see them, because this back
problems, neck problems, all sorts of things inhibit you
enormously in terms of your performance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To find a way to optimize and
keep your health. Because when you haven't got
your health, everything else is fucking.
What's the one thing you want when you're when you're sick?
It's that you want to get better.
There's nothing else you want. And just sticking on healthier
like someone that someone that I do have in my team is I do have
a health consultant like he he like is a guy called a JAJ
superhuman. And I employed AJ like two years
ago to sort out my gut health, to do my bloods and to sort out
my gut. And it was one of the best
decisions I have ever made. Touch word.
I have not been sick in two years.
Now, you were getting sick a lot, weren't you?
Like you were like. All the time I all, every time I
travelled, I get sick like. I get sick like 5-6 times a year
now. I haven't been sick in two years
and my health is really, really great.
But but AJ is still in my team. So even when I'm so when I moved
to London recently, I was like, I'm moving to London.
I'm going to come out of all this like beautiful fresh air,
clean air that I've got in the countryside into the big,
literally the big smoke. I'm going to be on tubes.
There's going to be loads and loads of people.
And I'm like, I'm like got a hold of AJ.
I'm like, dude, this is my new situation.
Anything that I should add into my supplement stack or, or be
aware of? And he, he gave me some advice
is that, yeah, do this and do this, that that should, that
should keep you good, keep you going.
If if you start getting sniffy noses, start doing this like.
Otherwise, I've just been figuring that out on my own.
Yeah, the the way to look at this, especially if you are a, a
high net worth guy, like if you're earning over six figures
or you like you're in your own company being paid over a six
figure salary, think about what it costs you to be ill for a
week. And it's it's a significant
amount. If you actually work out, it's
quite a significant amount. And then you look at what you'd
probably spend with one of these people.
So when you start to see these bills of like 200 and 5300 lbs,
£500 a session, whatever it is, like, especially with a lot of
these people we're talking about, you start to go, oh,
that's actually nothing. That's actually a small amount.
Like that's actually relatively really small.
And the problem I think that a lot of guys have is that they
don't look at it like that. They just look at it as a pure
cost because of their values, their values on other things.
That's AP. If I didn't have all these
people that I worked with, I'd have a Porsche because I value
my health and self development and my highest value leadership
and I like and these like shut up bands.
Go and get the Jeep. Yeah, what?
Dude, why not have both? Yeah, exactly.
I think it's I actually have, you know, I've cut down, cut
down. But yeah, the OK, let's move
into the next one because I think that's going to talk a lot
about this one, the group. So I think like knowing what I
know now about the experience that I've had, every man needs a
group end of like every. But this is not a
recommendation. This is a need.
It's like you, of all of these things, I think this is probably
the most important one. Yeah, absolutely, fucking
absolutely. Just every man needs a group and
the right, the right group, right, the group that's going to
see you grow, that's going to be there when you go through the
fucking dark times, that's going to be there when you go through
the fucking great times. And, and, and you to always have
the outlet, always know that you've got the backing from the
from you guys. So, so fucking important.
I was with someone a couple of nights ago and we're we're out
for dinner. We're having a long, long chat.
This is another guy and he hasn't got this.
He is in his 40s and he he hasn't, he's got one close
friend and he was like, well, The thing is, I'm in my 40s now.
I'm not really interested in going out and finding new groups
of mates and build and building new connections.
And like the guys that did know me and like have moved away like
they've known me for like 20-30 years.
How will I, how will anyone ever build that sort of connection
with me? What now?
So what they're going to build that connection with me until
I'm 60. Like, and in his head it was
just like, no, it's just, it's just, it's just not going to
happen. And I completely challenge that.
And I'm like, dude, that that is the level of people that you are
around. I can tell you that I've got
relationships with guys that I've known for six months.
They know me deeper than the guys some of my school friends
have known for 2020 years. And it's the, and it's the level
of consciousness of the guys that you are around.
If you're around conscious men that you, you go deep with them
super, super quick and you build, you build that that
intimacy in a, in a friendship very, very quickly with the
right group. Yeah, I, I can't say enough
about how important this is as part of your team.
Like this is, it's almost now like as soon as you you're
listening to it, like honestly listen to this podcast and just
think to yourself, who's my group?
And I think what Pete said there as well was it's not the group
that you go for. Just go for a couple of pints
with your mates. If that's what you enjoy, That's
that's good connection if that's what fills your solo, if it
connects you with your school mates.
But what I'm talking about is a group of men to disclose things
that are hard about business life, relationship, all that
sort of stuff in a way that works for you as well.
It doesn't need to be a big group.
It could be a group of 2-3 guys, idea 3 as a group.
Or it could be very similar to AMP where you'll you'll get
between how many guys you'll get in a group in a group call.
In AMP at the moment there's fifty guys, you know, we'll have
20 guys on a call. Yeah.
And, and I think what's great about a group is that a lot of
the time you can sit there and a guy will talk about their
struggles and challenges and you're processing your own
without having to say anything. I think that works really well
for guys as well. So having a group is part of
your team and that is that is so important.
Yeah, that's, that's The thing is this is what I've learnt from
having the heroic man and awakened man.
And in those groups I talk about my shit.
I'd like I talked about what was going on with me a couple of
days ago with all the guys and the guys are just listening.
And then so, so much from the armour.
Pete, fucking completely relate to that.
I'm so glad you said that. I was.
I've been thinking that recently myself.
But what I've also learnt from being part of a group is that
they help you build the rest of your team because they because
those group members, whether there's three of them or whether
there's thirty of them, they also have team members like AJ,
my superhuman health guy, I got him from the awakened man.
One of the other guys in there knew him was like Pete, this was
two years ago. Pete talked to AJ.
You build a great group of guys. You'll you'll build the rest of
your team. Yeah, that's, that's very true.
That's very true. Next one.
And I think this is important. This is something that
especially for guys looking to explore different ways to
optimise themselves and their mindset, their body, which is a
breath work coach. So I've used a lot of different
coaches, like breath work coaches.
Me and Pete did some work over in Dubai together.
So we used a lady called Constan, says Witzel.
I think Switzel or Witzel, she's a German breath work coach based
in Dubai. And it was interesting like, and
I think that what was interesting is since the last
like six months a year, I've actually gone to way more female
coaches. I'd never had a female coach
until this year. I'd never even like I'd had
maybe like a couple of female Massachusetts and what's it
called physios, but never a mindset coach.
And this year I I enrolled with Kristen Sargent.
I worked with Kristen for from the tools group who worked with
Phil Stutz and I also had constancy.
But I think what constancy does really, really well is that she
creates a really, really safe space.
She's a great she's got a very melodic, gentle voice.
She's very powerful. She's she just the, the space
that we did the, the work in Pete, you know, you can talk
about it's like literally you're looking at you're overlooking
the Burj Al Arab. It's very like opulent,
beautiful. The space is really good.
And then we did some work in there and I just, I kept on
going every week, every single week, I would have a one to one
private session and I would talk about anything that's coming up
in my life, like in my relationship, I would do the
breath work and it's like an hour of hard breath.
You're working the breath and it may as well be you're taking
what's called like like drugs. You know what?
It literally what's the word? What's?
Your DMT. Yeah, what's the word?
There's Psycho. Psychedelics.
Psychedelics, you know, you, you get the same level of insight
that you can from psychedelics, so very powerful.
I mean, it just opens up a different level of
consciousness. So I think having a breath work
coach is, you know, there's another guy, James Tremaine,
he's phenomenal over in Ibiza. There's Constance, there's Mark
Granley we mentioned before, very, very good people are
working with the breath. Yeah.
And also, and this is another reason that going back to the
group, you know, if you pick the right group, they'll do this
sort of work. We, we did this sort of work in
Awakened and the Heroic Man. Every event that I put on the
event that I've got in on the 14th and 15th of September in
London, we will be doing breath work.
Like so I have Amelia that comes in and that does that breath
work with all the guys. It is fucking phenomenal.
Like you can get you guys get transformation and choose
shifts. Yeah, I think, I think.
I think that like for me, the reason I put it in my team is
it's like an instant stress remover.
Like you get guys that you know, when we've done work together
with the with the groups, like guys like walk over to you after
they're like, Oh my God, like I just can't believe I feel so
good. I feel so good.
I feel so like present relaxed when.
We did this last month. I had one of the guys say, Pete,
this is the first time in my life that I've seen myself.
He's in his 40s. Yeah, after doing breath work.
Yeah. And I think so it's a, it's a
legal way to access that level of, of of.
Yeah. Consciousness without having to
inhibit your performance the following day or later in the
afternoon. So OK, next one is, is a
marriage counsellor and like this is, is interesting.
And, and I think Pete, if we can look for someone on the pod, if
you listen to this pod and you know, A and we're looking for
like a world class counsellor because I've had someone who
asked me to abandon, you know, marriage counsellor.
I was like, I don't actually know a marriage counsellor, but
this person, I think that you should.
I would like Night like to have this person ready for when the
inevitable might show up in my relationship.
Yeah. And like actually fair to Yasin.
Yasin, I would take all of my. The thing about the what's
different about marriage counsellor and a coach is like I
would work on myself in my relationship by talking to Yasin
and he would challenge me and push me and show me things that
I wasn't thinking about. Whereas a marriage counsellor,
you both go together and you have conversations in front of
the counsellor, which I think is really powerful.
And I think that those two things work together.
You have to be working on yourself, but you also have to
be working with when the inevitable comes up.
I'll tell you what team I'd I'm not in a relationship at the
moment. I'm dating the the next like
deep, meaningful and like longer term relationship that I get
into. This is something that I will
absolutely be seeking out and but not not with the intention
of getting this person in when times are bad.
It's that or like times are getting.
It's actually because like this is a study done by it's like the
got one institute who's who's studied this.
And it's like if when you go to relationship counselling and and
marriage counselling, they look at it in a, in a point scale and
like, so points between zero to 10/10/10 being ultimate
relationship, you're doing really well.
It's the, it's very, very, very, very high likelihood that you
will be there for the long term. 0 being right.
But they're, they're also like if, if the relationship is, is
anything below A7, so six and six and below, it's a low
likelihood. It's actually not going to last
a long term. So if you're in a relationship
and then and you're looking at and you're thinking, do you know
what, on a scale of one to 10 right now, my relationship's
probably a level 4 or level 5, you're already in a bad
position. And what the, the study said is
that a counsellor, if they are good, they are able to take the,
the point scale up by two. So if it's if it's if it's a
four or five now and they and they only take it up to A6 or
A7, you're still on the brink of it not lasting for a long time.
Whereas if it's, if you're like, oh, do you know, it's a six and
A7 now, So it's, it's good, go and see a specialist now and
take it up to an 8 or a nine. Like go deeper with them now
rather than like waiting until it's shit's hitting the fan.
Let's go and see a counsellor. Yeah, and I think it's almost
like one of these things work in isolation.
I think that they all work together.
They're synergistic. Like if you, if you've got a
psychotherapist and you've done your own work, you'll be better
in counselling and coaching and marital coaching.
If you are doing your own work with a group of guys, working
out your own shit, you're probably going to be better in
your relationship anyway. You're going to be able to take
more responsibility. You're going to be more adult
and you're going to be more masculine and mature around the
the conversations you're having in these environments.
I think that it would be, maybe it would be like not as good an
investment if you went to marriage counselling and you
hadn't done personal work. If you weren't taking
responsibility, if you had all of your own traumas and patterns
from your parents just playing out into your marriage and you
went to marriage counselling. It's almost like a waste of cash
because you're the fricking issue.
And like, that's the like, that's what happens with so many
guys is that they think that, Oh yeah, I went to marriage
counselling and it didn't work. It's like, yeah, because you're
fricking so trapped in your patterns and shit that you
haven't given it the chance. So I think you do have to have a
level of consciousness in your relationship to be able to
access that properly. Because I think back, if I was
to go to marital counselling with my previous wife, that
would never have, like, gone well.
Like, it would have been like I had a level of consciousness
that she would not have even talked.
I imagine it would have been very, very difficult.
So I do think that you do need to make sure you have a level of
consciousness at which you've created and all of those other
things. Yes, I completely agree.
Yeah, OK. The next one is a confidant.
And I actually, I put Pete on that, you know, Pete's my
confidant. I pretty much tell Pete
anything. Like I'll tell Pete all sorts of
stuff. And I've also got Lee, my my
buddy from school because I have the frequency with Dubai with
him. We'd run every morning and and
sometimes I would be just like moaning and whining about life,
you know, just to get it out, like venting.
And he'd have to say, come on, man.
You know, you've been, you've been like low on, on the on the
the life Scalia man, just come on, chin up.
But equally he would, he would vent about his life and we would
run in the desert and talk and I'd come back and I'd be like,
that's my therapy done for the day.
It was having a confidant is is not necessarily someone who's
trained. It's just someone that you
trust. Like I'm going to tell you
something. I know I don't even need to pre
frame that. It doesn't go anywhere.
I was going to say something to you and just by you being you
disclosing that. And I think because being you've
done so much stuff together, Pete, I had that connection with
you and I and I think that's really valuable.
And a lot of guys don't sadly don't have that.
Like that's something they don't have.
Yeah, or they do have it, but it's how do I want to say this?
I, I, I'll just give you an example is that you, you have,
you have someone that's close to you, but when you do talk about
it, they project back onto you or they're one up you or they'll
just actually just won't let you talk or they'll just try and fix
it for you. And, and so you can come away
from from your confident conversation and go.
I don't actually fucking get much from that because then
actually say everything I wanted to say or the other person
actually just flipped it onto their life and their story.
And so it's like you, you have a real strong partner here who
doesn't project onto themselves or doesn't like one up you with
the story and does fucking listen.
It's extremely powerful. Yeah.
Have you heard about your rim feet?
You should see my Achilles mouth.
No, I got it. Yeah, I, I, I experienced this
recently. I experienced it very, very
recently. Like, you know, a couple of
nights ago I went out with someone super, super close to me
family and 90% of it was just all about the other person.
I'd say actually 95% of it. And I came right, And I was
like, yeah, do you know, I hope they had a great, great night
talking about themselves. Once you see it, you can't even
see it. No, you.
Can't you can't, but it's also once you start having deeper
relationships with people and and once you start being around
other guys that can hold a fucking space and hold a
conversation and go and and and go deeper if you, if you want.
It's like you don't want anything else outside of that.
Have you have a relationship because like, well, this is just
fucking surface level. Why do I want this in my life
now that my standards are higher?
Yeah, next one I've got you talked about having a, you
talked about AJ before, like the blood work, the chemist.
I actually went to DNA health and Wellness in in Dubai.
They were really good. I, I would never have done that
as an athlete because it was, you know, a lot of the things I
take would not legal in, in athletics, but I actually, I
actually take BPC, which is peptide, you know, peptide
therapy and this helped me with my Achilles tendon.
So I, I put blood work and chemist you need that on your
team because actually the, the health insurance policy of going
and seeing what's wrong before it's an issue is so important.
So I think that that this is like a health insurance, but if
you can spot a cancer early, a like a stress based immune
problem early, you're going to have much better fighting chance
of it getting it sorted. So as guys, what the way I would
prescribe this is put it in your calendar as a repeating event to
book a check up. So this is all you need to do.
Use your calendar to take care of this.
Go and see your blood work specialist, your chemist.
It could be a doctor like I this is not anything against GPS, but
they're busy. They haven't got the, the
bandwidth to really get into the hood about what's wrong, But it
can be a good first start. So if you listen to this as a
guy and you, you don't go to see your doctor regularly, it maybe
is because like, well, you say like, well, if I'm not broken,
don't fix it. Well, actually this is a
difference where you have a, a chemist or a blood work
specialist or a, a endocrinologist or whoever it
is, you just check in with him once a year and it can be the
thing that you put. So for example, I worked with a
guy called Doctor Phil Richards for about four years.
He was my first mentor in, in nutrition.
And Phil looked down the the what's called the microscope of
guy's blood before now. And I what?
I was in the room and he said, hey, Ben, can you leave the room
for a second? And he had to tell the guy that
he had cancer. He said, like, I can see cancer
in your blood. This guy had no idea.
Yeah, this this guy had paid for a blood consultation because he
was not feeling great. He thought he had a little
testosterone. He looked down the scope.
This guy had cancer. And like, this is The thing is
he caught it early and it was massively, massively helpful.
So it depends on how which level you want to go up.
But just doing a good check up for a guy with a testosterone or
for for for inflammatory markers, definitely worth having
in your team. Yeah, 100%.
I have a guy, he's actually, he's one of the clients in
Awaken Man. He gives loads and loads of
great advice within the Awaken Man, Spencer W we call, we call
Spencer biohacking Batman because he just everything, but
he's so like just so clued up on like if there's an issue to do
with your body, like he will have some resource or something
that can help fix that and then optimise that area.
Like a little while back I was like, you know what, I keep
reading about parasites and like, and just like at the way
that they can affect your, your body and your gut and your brain
and so on. And I just mentioned it and
Spencer's like, oh, hey, dude, here's some protocols for you to
just start flushing those out. It's like having someone like
that in your corner that knows about that to a high level and
can talk about it and and then give you actual protocols.
Yeah. And also he, he walks his talk.
He's like, he's like, he looks you look at him.
The dude like radiates energy. Yeah, yeah.
The dude like he's like in his 40s, you think?
You think he's probably like 30. He looks phenomenal, radiates
energy. We actually talked about this
actually to the side note is we look back on the podcast, me and
Robert Glover and Pete and Robert, I'm like, you should see
me and Pete, my hair is dodgy. I love and fat.
You know, we're like, we've got, you know, we've aged well, my
friends like and like that's so important as a guy like you're
in your prime. If you're in your 30s, guys,
you're in your prime. Yeah, I look, I, I, I just
turned 37, right, a couple of weeks ago.
I look better now than I did a couple of years ago.
Looking back at that, looking at that podcast we did with Doctor
Robert Glover and I messaged Ben and I was like, dude, look at us
like we, we look fucking way better now.
And that's because we've, we've been in the awakened man in this
world for now a couple of years. So, so focused on who's in our
team. Yeah, so this final one I want
to talk about. There is a side one here, a
Barber, you know, get a great Barber.
This is something I've realised going to before.
I'm going to say this one quickly because I don't want to
talk too much about this one, but I've realised that going to
the Barber is so important for me.
I love it. I really enjoy it being like
pampered by a guy. Get a good Barber because it's a
good conversation. You can network there, like talk
to guys, go and chill, get pampered, get a good Barber.
That has actually, Pete joked about that before the podcast,
but not you're so right about this.
It's fucking important. And one of the other guys in the
heroic man said yesterday, no, it's this morning.
When I did a call this morning, he was like, yeah, Pete, I
actually got rid of my old Barber because of this point,
because I was talking about the other people's standards that
you hang around. Yeah.
Because it's so easy to drop to other people's standards if
they're if they're not as high as yours and then you can just
go into bad ways. My Barber was a sack of shit.
We. Used to get like literally he
would he would sit and he goes like, ah, so who you shagging?
And I was like a partner. Like what?
Anyway. Before look, before we go on to
this, this last one, I got another one which is important,
very, very fucking important. This is having someone that can,
that you can talk to about your finances.
It's like a, like a financial advisor, like a wealth
management consultant or professional, someone that can
advise you on what you're going to do with you with, with your
will, with your assets, someone that can help you with your
investments when you start making more money.
It's like where you're going to where, where you put in your
money. And so like having someone like
that in your team is fucking important.
Even if it's like right now, it's just like there's not a lot
of assets going on or I'm not making as much as I want to be
making. Still get your wills, get your
will sorted or just like have someone that's going to sort
that area and then and then you've got it.
And my, my just advice here on going through a few people is
find someone that walks to walk and, and like is wealthy.
You know, it's not just some random financial advisors who's
earned 40 KA year and isn't walking to walk and isn't and
isn't doing what you want, hasn't got what you want.
But find someone who's wealthy. They might have a team that that
does the work for you, but ultimately it's coming from
their knowledge. This, this final one, I haven't
talked about it as openly as I probably want to.
And I said to people before the call, I, I, I want to talk about
this more. It's an edge for me because I
and, and by me sharing this, I'm not endorsing that you go and do
it. I'm just sharing my experience
and I'm, it was transformational for me.
And it was something I had a call in to do for a long time,
which was plant medicine. I wanted to do plant medicine.
I wanted to invest in an experience with medicine and I
just didn't know who to trust. And it was actually Pete, you
know, Pete share his experience about this.
But I wanted to find someone I could trust, someone who could
create an experience which I was looking forward to doing,
someone who I felt had experience and wisdom around
this. And also I was in a part in a
part part of my life where I had this call in, but I didn't know
what it was. Anyway, one day Pete said that,
listen, I'm going to go and do this.
And I was itching to find out about his experience.
And we've gone to see a guy called Danny Saggers.
Danny is one of the awakening clients.
He is an incredible shame in. And I think having a shame in at
this phase of your life in your corner for when you have the
call in to go and do that stuff is important.
Like I, that's what my, I believe.
And what was great about the way that Danny created his, his
experience with, with medicine is that he really knows his
stuff and he, he's treads the line between it being a
prescriptive, very spiritual experience and the, the actual,
what's the word for it, the cultural side of how it's all
performed as well. It's very sacred.
It's very, very sacred. And Danny as a guy as well,
holds the line between powerful masculinity and beautiful
feminine mask like male energy and that, and that's what worked
really well for me personally. And so getting in touch with
Danny was really, really helpful for me.
And it was, it was transformational for my life.
And so I want to talk, I probably want to do a whole
podcast on this. So if you're listening to this
and you want to hear more about my experiences doing this,
please get in touch. I know P would be open to doing
the same thing. But I think that having this in
in your team, at some point, you're going to get in your own
way as a leader, as a man. And I think this, this is a
cheat code for going a mile deep, going like really into
your psyche, getting blocked. Like Pete actually referred to
it. I'll let you, it's like 1000
hours of, you know, I'll let you give that analogy.
But because that Pete, Pete owns that at the moment, I'm going to
steal it. But it moved me so far so fast.
And I think that having this person that you go annually to
do this work with is just such an important part.
So that's the the final person on this.
You know what we're talking about today that I think that
you should have in your team. What what was your experience
about Pete? Yeah, yeah, I I agree now that I
have stepped into that realm and that that different spiritual
side of life and I'd absolutely agree.
I like my, my, it's not a caveat, but this is like how it
came through for me is that I had I had the fucking calling to
do it. I'd like there was always in the
back of my mind. I always knew years, years ago,
my at some stage I'm probably going to do something.
I'm I'm going to do something, but I'd been told a long time
ago, just wait until it feels right for you, Pete.
Wait until you get that cordon. You know when it comes.
And it did. It came like immediately after
me and my ex partner decided to break up like a like right there
right then it was like, oh, Pete, this is this is now your
time. And coincidentally, that a week
prior, Danny had joined the awakened man and I'd met him
before. A connection with him was like,
this is this is actually the universe kind of lining up here.
This is here for me. And now I'm going to take this
opportunity. It's not something that I have
done since, but it is something I plan on doing again this year.
And, and like Ben said, but for me, it'll be a yearly thing.
It's not I, I see loads and loads of people go into it as a
bit of a crux and like doing it over and over and over.
And it's like a weekly thing. It's a monthly thing and it's
like it's using it as the answer.
For me, this is about using this as a tool to enhance my team and
not to not to have it as a bit of a crux, but use it as the
thing that's going to take me to the next.
It's to find my edge. I also feel that I got so much
out of it and Ben has got so much out of it because of the
amount of like historic work that we've done, like on
ourselves, understanding our behaviours and our patterns, our
emotions and going and doing a lot of therapeutic work, doing a
lot of group work, doing a lot of personal development, self
development. That for me enhanced that
because as I I believe I was able to go a lot deeper because
I had that in my in my armoury. Even during the experience that
the work I did in therapy was coming up and making more sense
than I saw. So I think again, it's, it's
part of that bigger process. And I think we've referred,
referred to this kind of theme throughout the podcast, is that
individually these things work well, but synergistically they
work very, very, very, very, very well.
Like bring them all together. So, yeah, I, you know, I think I
think we could do a whole podcast and share about this,
share intricately, intricately about my experience and what
it's done for me since. Yeah.
So, so I think we should wrap it up, Pete, honestly, really,
really think that's been really powerful.
If you, if you'd like to know more about any of the people
that we've talked about, feel free to reach out to any of us
like Pete or, or I and we'll give you the the contacts that
because this I think that these people that we've referred to do
great work. A lot of these things you'll get
inside of the awakened mana, heroic mana.
I think that's why it's such a great one stop shop for a lot of
those things we've talked about. But equally, I think sometimes
you do need to build your team. So thank you so much for for
listening in guys. Yeah, Cheers guys.
See you next week.