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This is the first podcast I've done this year where we had tears. Um, and not just once. And uh, I don't really know
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how to introduce this conversation. I guess I guess the thing I want you to know is that things aren't always what
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they seem. And um, really that humans all feel the same. We
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all feel the same emotions, the same peaks, the same troughs. And no matter what it looks like on the the outside,
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things aren't always what they seem. I'm Steven Bartlet and this is the diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but
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if you are, then please keep this to yourself. [Music]
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Visualization. That's a very relevant word, I think, to start this conversation because in our last
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conversation last year when I asked you what you wanted to be remembered for, what you wanted to do next in your
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career, you told me that you wanted to have a legacy for getting kids all
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across this country up exercising and really into exercise. Sort of similar to
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how Jamie Oliver completely changed the way we view like school dinners and things. And I remember Jamie Oliver was the reason I was eating apples instead
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of Mars bars when I was younger. And then just like a couple of months later,
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the pandemic happens and you're getting millions and millions and of kids in this country up dancing
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and into exercise only a couple months later. It like boggles my mind. I've never seen someone
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say something so big, such a big ambition, and then only like a couple of
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months later do it on a scale which nobody has ever done it before. That's what happened. And I remember when we
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met and we talked about that moonshot thing, the idea of like having a goal so big and so out of reach that you feel
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like you can never, you know, almost never attain it. And that was my vision. It was to have that legacy of making an
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impact, you know. And I do think about Jamie. He's had amazing success as a chef, as a, you know, an author. Look, I
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think about the Jamie school dinners, the man who went into the schools all over the UK and said, "Look, this isn't
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this isn't enough. Our kids can eat healthier." And I feel the same about school fitness and exercise and PE, not
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just about obesity and the diabetes thing, but I think about our children's mental health. And I said to you that I want to have a legacy where I can create
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absolute, you know, national change and national um create awareness around
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fitness and, you know, lockdown happened and within, you know, 18 weeks that happened. So it was almost like a
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10-year dream happened in 18 weeks and I'm so proud of that that I I've reached that many people. Take take me to the start of so lockdown
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happens. Where does this idea come from? Like what what happens? How does And then I want to hear like when you saw
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the numbers, the amount of people tuning in every day and the impact it was having. How did all of that feel? It was an intense moment in time, but it
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was also something I' I did visualize and I did I had been working on. So I'd been visiting schools. I on the UK tour.
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I went to Ireland, Northern Ireland. I' I'd visited schools. I'd worked out with hundreds of kids in these schools. Um,
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that Monday I was supposed to go on another tour, me and Nikki. We're going to take the camera, you know, it's my brother Nikki. Um, and like I've always
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said, there was no TV show. There was no money. There was no budget. It was just me and Nikki going and doing what we
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love, which is connecting. And I suppose reconnecting with the mission and purpose I have because when it's all digital, I do sometimes feel like it's
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just numbers and is it is it real people? So, I have to go and visit the schools and actually meet the kids and do it. So, on the Monday, I was supposed
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to go out on the road. We had about 15 schools chosen and Boris announced, you know, there's going to be this lockdown.
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So, it was 12:15 a.m. I was laying in bed on the Thursday night and I text Nikki cuz I looked at my WhatsApp the
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next day and I text Nikki saying, "I've got this idea." Um, and honestly, I saw everything. I saw a hashtag. I saw a
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logo. I saw the name. I said, "It's going to be called PE with Joe every day next week. Do it. Let's just try it for
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a week. 9:00 a.m. um Monday to Friday." I announced it and loads of PR, you know, loads of school newsletter was,
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you know, school news letters were tweets tweeting it and I was doing ESPN, CNN, like global PR and I thought this
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is going to be really big, but still had no idea how many people would tune in on the Monday. Um, and on the Monday we
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went live. I stepped in front of that camera and I was really nervous and 850,000 I think it was live streams and
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I thought, wow, like if you think about how many kids that could possibly be and then day two was the biggest one. So day 2 was 954,000
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live streams, which is a a world record. Yeah. Concurrent live. It was almost a million people watching
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at the same time. Yeah. It it blew my mind. And I I realized there and then that that was
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like families, that was kids, it was schools. It wasn't like individual people. So really, it was probably tens of millions of people a day. And I felt
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this amazing sense of purpose. Like I was there for people that when they needed me the most because everyone was locked in. you know, whether you had
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children or not, you were like confined, you felt restricted, your mental health was going to suffer that day. And I was there like to to be there and just have
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fun. And I never once, one thing I was really cautious of, never mentioned lockdown, never mentioned COVID or the
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or you know, anything to do with that. It was like it was a safe 30 minutes where we could forget about things. I put the music on, we were dancing around
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being really silly and that was a gift. That was my gift to the world. It was just a bit of laughter, some feelood
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energy, and a and a real boost in their mood. When that finished, I know that they were happier afterwards. And you must have got a lot of calls from the
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big sort of production companies and TV companies wanting to like buy it or or to to bring it to TV, right?
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Within within a few days. So, you remember I told you the story about the Channel 4 thing. I was trying my hardest to make the UK tour thing and a
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documentary around schools fitness, but they never had the budget that no one could do it. Well, within a few days, the head of Channel 4, like the top guy,
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I can't think of his name, called me up personally. He said, "Joe, what you're doing is amazing. We'd love you to
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stream the workouts on Channel 4." And I I was like, dude, like I'm doing this on YouTube. I've got kids in Sri Lanka and
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South America and India and like even like Madagascar and the Maldes taking part in these workouts. I can't do this
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on Channel 4. I need to be global. And I'm so glad I stuck with that because that really allowed it to go global. It
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allowed everyone all over the world to take part. And don't forget, I was getting a million live streams, but by the end of the 24 hours, there was 7 8
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million views. Crazy. So total 80 million views on the 18 weeks. So 80 million individual views.
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But how many families or schools are doing that? So it's tens of millions of kids and that was my dream. So I just
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can't believe it happened. But I built up that trust over eight years. You know, as the body coach, as Joe Wixs, as
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this missiondriven person, anyone could have had the same idea, but maybe they wouldn't have had the same reaction because like I said, I've put out so
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much love and energy and positivity and visiting these schools that those teachers knew I was going to deliver a
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really fun and safe session for their kids. 18 million people is, you know, when you sat down with me last year and
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we had this conversation, you said you wanted to to do this nationally, right? You said you want to get kids exercising
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nationally. There's only about 60 million people in the UK. You managed to do 80 million people all around the
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world on a global level, but also at a time when people really needed that kind of energy the most. at a time when the
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country was, you know, fearful and people were trapped indoors and not exercising as much as they they could
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have been. So I, you know, we can talk about the the pee with Joe thing for a
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long time, but the thing that actually fascinates me more is what happens
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afterwards. So you've just that goal you set out to achieve, you achieved it quick.
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How does it feel after? Well, you talk about that gold medal syndrome, you know, of people having this like coming
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off tour or coming to back from the Olympics and they have this kind of feeling of like feeling flat or not
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depressed maybe, but confused and lost. And that's what happened. I moved into this new house and I thought, I've got
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this lovely house. Why? Why am I feeling flat? And for the first two weeks I was there, I was missing my old house in Richmond because my children were born
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there. PE with Joe was in that living room that you interviewed me in. And it was like this I left this energy behind and moved into this new life. And I was
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like, why am I feeling like this? And I realized it was because I I'd lost my purpose. I'd been disconnected from that audience every day. Um, so when I felt
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that, the first thing I do, I jump on my Instagram. Like I said to you, I used to do DMs and voice notes and I reconnect
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with the messages. I read the YouTube comments so that I know 2 million people a month were doing YouTube um workouts
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before the lockdown. I'm now getting six to seven million views a month. So that's real people that have changed their habits that are still doing it.
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Um, and it reminded me why I did it. And also I had wonderful letters. So, I had two two or three I'm going to say it was
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probably near like two or three thousand like letters and cards and things. That's that seems mad, but I had this stack of um things to go through. So, I
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sat in my office for 2 days, you know, laughing, crying, like feeling this love. It was like this wave of love when
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I realized what I'd actually done during that time. It wasn't just about me getting kids exercising. It was like
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widows. It was single parents. It was people with anxiety and depression living on their own. And in all the all
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the different places in the world, it was really emotional. So, I did feel lost, but I've reconnected with that because now I'm still doing my YouTube
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workouts. I'm still delivering free content. And although there's this new product and this app coming out, I'm so passionate and committed to doing that
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one workout a week that I will never neglect that free content and that audience that are there that still may never buy my app or my my books.
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You talked about buying a new house, probably a bit of a dream come true in many senses. Um, but again, you speak
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about it being kind of anticlimactical, like in like it not feeling like that expectation that when you got that big
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house, cuz I've seen the house, it's it's a nice house. You should have felt like confetti should have come down and
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you should have felt amazing and but you kind of described it like you didn't feel that like that. Yeah, I kind of thought, you know, I was
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I was going to move anyway, but it was like the the the lockdown accelerated because we had paparazzi outside and I wasn't used to that, you I wasn't used
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to being having like photos taken of me in India when we walked to the park and we lived on a main road so it's quite public and people would knock and and
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sort of say hello and it was fine but sometimes you just want a little bit of privacy like when you switch off. So we found this lovely house and it's you
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know it's got a nice driveway. It's got a beautiful back garden. And when I was in there I just kind of thought why aren't I double as happy? I've got more
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space. I've got more garden but I genuinely felt like I left that part of me behind in that house that was so
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purpose driven. It was all about pee with Joe. It's where my kids were born. So, I suppose it's a lesson, and I really talked about that when Boris
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announced the lockdown number two. And I'm sitting there in my kitchen, I've got all this space. I'm thinking it doesn't matter if you've got a massive
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house, we live in a one-bedroom flat, we all feel the same right now. We all feel very disconnected, very lonely. You
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know, we miss our friends and family. We need to socialize. We need events, we need live music, we need dinners. So, so
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it's just a really important message that it doesn't matter what situation you're in. We're all feeling the same. And I really wanted to share that
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message. And it it definitely helped people open up the conversation because we're all we're all struggling, you know, mentally with this with what's
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going on. And yeah, you know, you've talked about it before, you know, ordering the car and the house. And I think we're driven by these things and
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consumerism like we we we're always wanting the next thing. But what I've realized during this lockdown is I'm happy exactly where I am with just what
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I've got. And that's a nice feeling. It's really nice when you realize that another Rolex, another car, even another
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motorbike or another holiday, it doesn't it doesn't give you what you really think. And I think people listening that
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are desperate for that life, I think we all will come to the same conclusion eventually. Whether you're 30
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or 60, we will all level out and realize that what's important is our friends and our connection and and our love to the
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people around us. It's as you say, it took me a long time to learn that lesson. And I the the phrase that I was
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You're only 27, aren't you? Something like that. Yeah. You ain't taking that long. You know, you you've got I think you're very When I listen to your podcast, I think
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you've got a lot of wisdom. I think you've spoken to a lot of people and you've you've absorbed a lot and I think you've really taken into your own um
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your own life and philosophies. I think I think it you know what I think it is I I've also been really like selfanalytical as in I will have a
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thought and I'll have a feeling and I'll try and grab onto it and hold it out in front of me and go why are you feeling like that? So the day as you kind of
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alluded to there where I realized I was going to be very wealthy and I start looking at cars and houses. I get this
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feeling of like the feeling you described with your old house which is I think if I get this I'll actually feel
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poorer in some way. I'll lose something. Like if I and then I thought to myself, well if I get this one what's next? If
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you get a Lamborghini Aventador the the best [ __ ] sports car, what's next? And then I was like I'm going to just
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keep going. And then me realizing that if I if I always start believe that my happiness was somewhere else, in a
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promotion, in a new car, in a big house, it will never be here. If I if I believe that I can't possibly
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be happy because I don't have X, I will never be happy because once I get X, it's like a mirage or a rainbow. It just
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moves out further in front of you. Yeah. And you see that with a lot of celebrities, a lot of musicians, like talented people that get everything so
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young, you know, they get to that point where they start, you know, they go into depression and anxiety and it can, you know, manifest in drug addiction or, you
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know, all kinds of things. But yeah, it's if you're constantly looking for the next thing or or or almost living in
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the past of old memories and what you used to have like you talk about down contrasting and up contrasting like that
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thing you said changed my life. Just thinking, stop thinking about what you did last year, how you went to America and you went to Coachella. Think about
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what you're doing today and not worrying about that. And it really just brings you to a it's like a medit it's like a meditation it's like a thought a simple
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thought where you can actually start to bring yourself back to the moment and like like I said I it could be a quote
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it could be a podcast it could be an interview little things just sometimes it opens up a whole new thought process isn't it and you start to think actually
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do you know what that's amazing and also I interviewed Fern Cotton and she said one of this lovely quotes is nothing in
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nature blooms all year round you know where we're const like I need number one podcast I need the number one app I need to have um you know the best
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book I need everything's got to be number one. I need to be doing everything every month for the year. But I've realized that in nature like
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nothing blooms all year round. And that again made me realize it's okay to have quiet months and not be in the media.
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Chill out, relax, because something good will come later on the year. You'll bloom again and during summer. And I think so little things like that really
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open up my mind. And I'm evolving quickly. I think since I become a parent as well, um you start to be much more
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empathetic and you start to understand and you feel a lot more when you've got kids. I don't know where it comes from, but I'm I I think a lot more about other
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people's feelings now more than I ever used to. I actually wrote down um when I was watching your video that you did during
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the lockdown where you start discussing your own mental health and you saying, "I've just watched Boris's announcement and I'm feeling really shit." But in
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that video, you also say, "I'm feeling [ __ ] at the thought that there's loads of families out here that are going to lose their jobs and stuff." And I wrote
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in my notes ear like incredibly empathetic. Like you are incredibly empathetic. And it kind of it made me
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question like where where did he get that from? Cuz that is a trait I noticed in you last time as well. Most people in
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the middle of a lockdown when they just found out that we're going into our second lockdown don't think oh my god
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all these other people that are going to lose their jobs and you I could see it in your face and I know you're a genuine
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guy cuz I've I've been with you. We gone for dinner. You know outside of the podcast I know who you are. I'm like he
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genuinely genuinely cares. I think it's grown in I think that feeling has grown in me. But where I
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used to be like, you know, when you're a teenager, when you're a young adult, it's all about you. It's like me, me, me me. And then you, you know, you find a
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partner and you start to realize it's about your partner and it's about your kids. But I think, yeah, like the more I realized that we're all connect. It's
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that thing of connection. You know, it comes from sometimes a meditation or a feeling of like we're all we're all in
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the same experience. And you know, I've I've been very lucky. Like the body coach brand has grown. You know, my
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YouTube audience has grown. Like the signups of the planets, it's all gone insane. And so I think about other
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people and small businesses. I I genuinely care about I think about families that have run like restaurants for 30 years or had you know properties
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or had like amazing nightclubs or you know amazing restaurants that are suddenly going under like that it affects me and that really when I stop
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and think about all the pain and suffering in the world it really brings me down. It really kind of brings my energy down and then I have to kind of
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exercise or do something positive because I start to feel a bit sad because that is the world right now. You know, there's billions of people that
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are going through a really difficult time. And so, my reaction to that is trying to inspire them to move, to eat
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well, to exercise, cuz I know that it can counteract any kind of, you know, financial pressures or stress that's
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going on. If you exercise and you lift your energy and you and you put good food in your body, you know, even
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temporarily, you're going to feel better and it's going to change your mind. So, that's my gift. You know, I try and inspire people to exercise and feel good
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for, you know, even if it's once a day or once a week, it's enough to change the way you feel about yourself and your
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life. We went for um a little dinner a couple of couple of months back. I don't know uh I think just after the first
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lockdown before the second one. Um, and I was I came home really inspired on one
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end, but just I couldn't shake this thought. And I I hate to go back to it, but I couldn't shake this idea that you
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just had the biggest achievement of your life with this P I mean outside of your kids in my opinion um out with this P
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with Joe format that just shook it just spread across the world, right? And the
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Joe I met at that dinner was somewhat despondent as you say like confused and
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um as you say like really unsure about why you weren't feeling on top of the
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world and also really unsure about what you do next to to kind of like top that I guess and it really stayed with me. It
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stayed with me for like a couple of weeks. What did you think? Do you think I was going to be more like energetic and and
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and proud and like ambitious or what? Every every person on planet Earth would have thought, "Okay, so Joe set out to
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achieve something and he smashed it out the park. He is on all of the TV stations. Congratulations on the MBE, by
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the way." That's a whole another conversation. We'll get to that. That's mad, isn't it? Mad. Um, he smashed everything out the park. Um,
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he's got to be just absolutely buzzing. We were sat at the dinner and there's people coming up to us asking you for
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pictures halfway through the dinner as well. But you weren't like that. And even though I've written about this in
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my book at great length about gold medal syndrome and gold medal depression and my own experiences, I still when I saw
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that in you, I was like, "Fuck, people need to hear about this because you were I'll be honest, right,
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that was the lowest I've ever seen you." Really? Yeah. I suppose I I mean, I was concerned.
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No, I mean, look, I was I was really looking forward to seeing you and I was it was I was, you know, we hadn't been out for a while, but I think coming off
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the back of that pee with Joe, I was emotionally drained. I think, you know, physically I can do workouts all day. I've done a dude, I done a 24-hour
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workout. Like, I can move my body, but I think the energy of performing, like going on stage, stepping in front of the
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camera when I wasn't in the mood for it, when I had to like pick up every I was literally carrying everyone's emotion
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and energy and trying to and I do believe in energy that we carry it and we push it and we sometimes hold negative energy. We sometimes hold
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things locked up from years ago. And I was just, I suppose, fatigued, emotionally fatigued at that point. But
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I've bounced back, you know, I'm back in the zone. I'm filming workouts again. And I'm um I'm refocused like I said on
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the on the purpose and and the mission which is like fitness for all and I've got the app is one option. I've got the books as one option but then also
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Instagram YouTube you know there's so much free content because I don't want anyone to feel like the body coach is
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this premium brand and I can only get to him through that paid subscription. No, I'm still going to give you one workout a week on YouTube and I'm still going to
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do my Instagram recipes. I'm still going to share my daily stories and motivate you. Um, and every now and again I might
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mention the app, but it really is just like for people that want to give it that extra push, you know, and try something a bit different. So, as we park pee with Joe, you know,
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last time you sat down here, you you put put out into the world your your goal, your ambition, and it came true. So, I
00:19:02
think, you know, let's tempate again. Uh, what is your what is your goal and ambition now going forward in terms of
00:19:08
your purpose? Well, I think what I what happened I achieved was a short-term thing. You
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know, it changed behaviors, but they had to they had to do it because they were locked in. parents had to keep their kids moving. Um, you know, schools
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weren't providing PE. Everything was closed. So, it was a temporary thing. It was the start of a movement, but it's
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the legacy is still continuing that movement. You know, continuing to visit schools, continuing to speak to heads,
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and I don't see it as a government thing cuz I've realized that you can actually just speak to local schools and they have the ability to change their
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curriculum. Well, they have to follow the curriculum, but they can change their timetable. if they want to fit a 15-minute workout in once a day with
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their children or do it um you know at the end of the day they have the ability. So again, it's about continuing
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to grow that mission to create content maybe as a separate platform which schools can use. But it isn't over
00:19:55
because like anything, motivation drops. It mot it drops for me, it drops for you. Um different times of the year and
00:20:01
with young people, they're very engaged at the early ages in primary school, but when they start hitting their teens,
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they're in the devices, they become more resistant to exercise. So the challenge becomes tougher as they get older.
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So my mission now is to continue the school's work. um when I can go on the road, start visiting schools again,
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creating content, you know, um hopefully creating a TV show around that, you know, like Jamie Oliver School Dinners
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was only six episodes. In my head, it felt like it was weeks and months and months of content. So, you know, I want
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to do the same thing. I want to create a really amazing series, whether it's um you know, Netflix or BBC or Channel 4 where I can continue that conversation
00:20:35
to get one teacher or one dinner lady or one um head of a school to believe in
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the power of exercise for their children. So, I really feel like I've just started. There's so much more to go. I think you have as well. And you know,
00:20:47
so like we one thing I've learned from doing this podcast and speaking to guests like you is that and even Eddie
00:20:52
Hearn who we had on last week is how pivotal and how defining our early years
00:20:58
are. And you are like a really fascinating guy in so many ways. We talked about your empathy, your achievements. Um, all of these things
00:21:05
suggest that you're because they're such extraordinary things or out of the ordinary things suggest that you
00:21:12
probably had quite an out of ordinary childhood. Whenever whenever I meet someone uh who is achieved out of
00:21:19
ordinary things, I always think okay tell me about your childhood. So, how was your childhood Joe? Oh, so you think you don't think it was
00:21:25
a stable childhood? Do you think there was something a bit more that motivated me on to Yeah, I I think I think um and it
00:21:31
doesn't necessarily mean it was like a really bad childhood or a good childhood. I always, you know, and I actually did childhood psychology for
00:21:36
two years, which people don't know about. This is why I'm so fascinated by like all the Freudian um psychology and and how one thing that happened. I've
00:21:43
got a friend who told me that one thing that happened when he was a kid, he still remembers to the day to this day.
00:21:48
and he holds that one comment that someone in his family made to him as the reason for his probably his single
00:21:55
biggest flaw in his personality and it was just one comment on one day from a parent.
00:22:00
Yeah, that's that's that's amazing. And it's the power of um yeah the power of a negative thought like if someone says your teeth are a
00:22:06
bit crooked or you've got skinny legs like someone could say you got lovely teeth your whole life but you still think your teeth are crooked and that's
00:22:12
happened to me in the past. I got Invisalign because one a girlfriend said to me once, you know, your teeth are a bit wonky or really, you know, and and
00:22:18
someone said about, you know, this is a true story. When I was 16, I had glasses, but I was really embarrassed. I was really shy about it. And the the
00:22:23
girl I was going out of said I said something like, "I wonder if I'd look good in glasses." And she she said, "Oh, no, you'd look silly in glasses." So, I
00:22:30
never wore them for two or three years. I hide them in my car, drive to her house, take them out. And, you know,
00:22:35
it's that thing of we really take on these these thoughts and it can really affect our confidence. Um, that
00:22:40
definitely happened to me as a kid. But I suppose my childhood was very chaotic. You know, it was very unstable. My dad
00:22:48
was a drug addict from a very young age. So, you know, that was it was a bit like, you know, he was there one minute,
00:22:53
next minute he was in rehab, next minute he was he was back on the gear, you know, and he my mom would take him back and it was all good and then they'd be
00:22:58
arguing and, you know, I lived in a council flat with um really thin doors. So
00:23:04
it was like um it was like plywood and so there used to be holes in the wall. It used to be holes in the door cuz I
00:23:09
remember um and I used to think why are there holes in the door? Like and I I look back now I know it's cuz mom and
00:23:14
dad used to fight and argue and you know it' be like it was a symbol of aggression and impatience and intolerance and then it'd be gone. And
00:23:21
so I always I didn't have a positive role model in terms of in terms of a male and also when it comes to marriage
00:23:27
you know my mom and dad never got married. If they were married they would have been divorced hundred times. So I had similar beliefs around marriage and
00:23:34
commitment to you. Like when are you talking about it? Like I I suppose I had the same feelings when I was 25. I
00:23:39
didn't believe that people stay together, people are committed, that marriage is going to work, that you know, people get through tough time
00:23:46
because it was always like when it got [ __ ] and tough, my dad would piss off and we'd be back on our own again. So
00:23:51
you know, again, it was a tough childhood, but also I had a happy childhood. I didn't I don't feel like resentment. I don't look back and be
00:23:57
like, I wish it was different. And I wish my dad was there because we got a great relationship today. But it definitely affected me. You know, the
00:24:03
destruction of drugs in my household and what came with it, all the chaos really put me off ever wanting to smoke weed or
00:24:10
drink alcohol. You know, I was so scared that I was going to enjoy it and I was going to become an addict. I thought it's a genetic thing. I thought I don't want to be a drug addict, so I wouldn't
00:24:16
go near it. So, it definitely um it definitely shaped me, you know, and when I look at where my love and generosity
00:24:22
and empathy comes from, it's my mom. like my mom is she's so kind and loving and she's so always putting other people
00:24:28
first and I think that definitely shaped me as a as an adult. I didn't actually know this stuff about
00:24:34
you before. I didn't know that you'd been through such a um tra traumatic early childhood and as you were saying
00:24:40
that I was thinking [ __ ] hell. remarkable that you are who you are and that you have such feelings of empathy
00:24:46
and you're just such a kind human being having gone through such a you know
00:24:52
violent and traumatic childhood and I guess that is credit to your mom. Um
00:24:58
I suppose yeah I look back when I get asked in interviews now like where where did your generosity and your kindness come from and your kind of desire to
00:25:04
want to help others. It's about help. I you know I'm happiest when I'm helping others. So, if I know I'm helping someone or I'm helping millions, I'm
00:25:11
really happy. And so, when it when it stops, I felt I'm not I'm not I'm not I haven't got my purpose. I'm not
00:25:16
valuable, but I realized I am still valuable. I'm still helping people. Um, but yeah, my mom, you know, she left
00:25:21
school at 15, no qualifications. She met my dad in a squat. She had my brother when she was 17. Then she had Nikki. She
00:25:27
had me when she was 19. She's like a kid. And when we used to go places, like people say, "Is that your sister?" She looked so young. You can't imagine.
00:25:34
Um, but somewhere along the line, she taught me value. She taught me respect. You know, if I had to be home at 10:00
00:25:39
on a Friday night, I was home at 10:00. My mates were down the park till 1 2 3 cuz their parents let them run loose and
00:25:45
they were the ones graffiti and they were the ones smoking weed. They were the ones that got in, you know, in trouble for, you know, crimes and whatnot. So, my mom was really,
00:25:53
considering she wasn't parented. Her dad left her when she was a kid. She was she was a banner when she was a baby. So I
00:25:59
don't know where her love comes from, but she's got this ability to just love and and be so generous. And when she
00:26:05
went to university, she went back. She said, "I want to study." She she went to become a social worker. So the first thing she done with her life was go and
00:26:11
help people that had, you know, young offenders, people that had been through abuse and and all this stuff. So it has
00:26:16
to come from her. It is emotional cuz my mom, so I took my mom for dinner um the night before it was going to be
00:26:21
announced and I said to her like, "We're celebrating my birthday tonight, aren't we? Cuz it's we we were having a late birthday dinner." But it's something
00:26:27
else. MB. Yeah, my MB. And I said, "Mom, um, I've got an MB." And she We're in the middle of Lucky Cat restaurant in London and
00:26:33
she burst into tears and I'm like in the middle of the restaurant crying with her and she's like when she was younger like
00:26:39
all her friends used to say, "You're a [ __ ] [ __ ] parent." Imagine the pride and it is it's she raised me like I have
00:26:45
to put it down to her. You talked about your dad there and said you said that you've um after all that
00:26:50
you'd been through and all you'd observed and his addiction and his battles with addiction, you've got a good relationship with him now. Yeah, we
00:26:57
we do because, you know, addiction never goes away. Like he's, you know, he does his NA meetings. It's a part of his
00:27:03
life, but he he needs that. He needs to have a fellowship and a network of people to talk to. Like I don't
00:27:08
understand addiction. I've never been addicted to anything. So for me, it's like it he needs that that network of people he can talk to and that's
00:27:14
obviously at the moment mostly through Zoom, but usually it's like NA meets you, you know, you go and have a talk and you you feel better. and he's had,
00:27:19
you know, he's had therapy, but you know, he's learned he's he's became he's evolved like again like his dad left him
00:27:25
and I understand my mom and dad because they went through so much trauma. My mom was abandoned when she was 2 years old
00:27:30
was living in a she was in a um you know a an orphanage and then my dad the same
00:27:36
thing his dad left him like he didn't have you know he didn't ever say I think I don't think my dad's dad told him he
00:27:42
loved him until he was like on his deathbed when he had cancer. So, like I understand where that addiction, why my
00:27:47
dad chose to like do that with his life and I understand why my mom had OCD like cuz I know what she went through as a
00:27:53
kid. I know what she went through as a young teenager. And so, you start to understand it and then you start to really love your parents even more
00:27:59
because they protect you when you're a kid. They're just protection. They can't tell you what they went through. They can't tell you this stuff. So, it really
00:28:05
like makes you realize how much trauma they've had and where that's manifested.
00:28:11
And so, now like my relationship with my dad is I understand him. I understand that he he has seasonal depression during the winter he's really low and
00:28:17
he'll have a holiday and he feels great and he comes back and he's up and down and that's him and I just have to kind of love him and although I'm quite
00:28:23
consistent with my emotions and you want everyone around you supposed to be happy all the time didn't you think I'll buy him a motorbike I I'll send him to the
00:28:30
molds I he can go and stay at my house in America it's all temporary it's all it doesn't do a lot you know so real
00:28:35
connection comes from like communicating reaching out spending spending time with him like he's happy when comes around and we go for a walk or we go on our
00:28:42
skateboards together you know we got electric skate So, it's about reconnecting and being with him. And he he needs that. My dad needs to see the
00:28:48
grandkids. He needs to see my brothers. He needs to see me. And um yeah, I've just learned that like I said that
00:28:54
really nice quote that the the you know, the antidote to addiction is connection. Not push them away. I hate you. I can't
00:28:59
stand it. Why are you relapsing again? Why are you going into depression? You know, the mind's really complex and you
00:29:05
have to like understand that people aren't going to always be how you want them to be. And you have to love them unconditionally.
00:29:10
But if you asked me as a teenager, I would be too angry. I would be like, "Fuck that." No, like I can't deal with it. I don't have a dad. My dad's a drug
00:29:16
add. I don't speak to him. I wouldn't have had the emotional um ability to deal with that. But now, as an adult,
00:29:21
I'm 35 and I can understand it a bit more. So crazy cuz um I love that quote, by
00:29:27
the way, and it I think Johanna Hari's a real uh sort of I think I've got his book on the shelf behind me about loss
00:29:32
connection. That's where it's from. Yeah, that's I think Russell Brand mentioned it to me and I thought, "Wow, it's such a nice thought." And that's what the book is about. It's
00:29:39
about the the real reasons for depression and anxiety fundamentally stem back to a loss of connection of some sort. And it was it was telling
00:29:45
when you were telling your story about the generational sort of cycle that's going on there. Your mother's, you know, your dad and her upbringing and then
00:29:51
your father's dad and how like it was a a lack of connection it seems that put
00:29:57
them into the situations they were in and then that lack of connection made them a certain way which then nearly
00:30:04
made you treat them with a lack of connection as well. And I think the it
00:30:09
seems like much of the reason you're able to break the cycle is because you've realized that and you're like, as
00:30:14
you say, bringing bringing him close despite, you know, I talk about this a lot with my friends that have um an
00:30:20
aranged parent or have lost a parent and I always try tell them I was doing it this week. I was saying you've got to
00:30:25
forgive them for their own faults because their faults have come from some
00:30:30
kind of trauma. And Tony Robbins says it as well. He says, "You've got sometimes we've got to forgive our parents for
00:30:36
being imperfect, not being the parents we hope they were." It's so true. It's so true. And like you
00:30:41
said, you know, memories memories can form like your literally change your characteristic, your personality, your
00:30:47
belief system. And I had really negative beliefs around commitment around um you know, people being faithful, people
00:30:53
sticking together, like when things got tough, the people and even I'd be affected if like celebrities that I really loved like they'd break up. I'd
00:30:59
think see that even they can't stay together. I just thought no one stays together. No one's loyal. No one's No
00:31:04
one's ever like actually happily married and stays together. But now as a married man with two kids who I love, I'm really
00:31:10
really like I don't believe that. I believe that you can be happy. I believe that when I see an old couple on the bench, you know, a 78-y old couple, I
00:31:16
love that. I think how amazing they've spent their life together, I want to be like that. I want to be a couple that have stuck together. So it's, you know,
00:31:22
my child has affected my um my my love and commitment as as a in a as a rel in a relationship to to Rosie, but also as
00:31:28
a parent. Like I don't want to be impatient and intolerant and snappy and swear and shout, but that is my default
00:31:34
setting. That's what my head's trying to do when Indie and Molly is screaming at me. I want to slam the door and walk out the house or I want to scream and shout
00:31:40
back at him cuz that's what I that's what I had as a kid. So I have to actively work against that. So although
00:31:46
I might be screaming in my head, I just take a breath and I like almost just sort of um yeah, just take a moment to
00:31:51
just sort of calm myself and then I can react very differently. But that is that's like a muscle. You have to train it
00:31:56
cuz otherwise I just be screaming and shouting all day long, you know. So that's definitely it's hard
00:32:02
to do that when you've had it all your life and you just got, you know, screamed at, shouted at. It's just it's like what you know, isn't it?
00:32:07
Default. It's a default. Yeah. Like it truly is. It's like a it's like a computer program and you have to sort of try and undo that
00:32:13
code. Um and I read a book called um calm calm parents happy kids. And it's
00:32:19
that thing you can either fight flight or or pause and have a breath. You can fight him and swear and shout and scream and slam the door. You can run out of
00:32:26
the house and just deal with it and let them deal with it and just not even deal with any emotion and show no emotional control. Or you can pause and have a
00:32:32
breath. And that's the the secret. It's just having that right. Indie's 2 years old. Her brain's not rational. She can't
00:32:38
understand why I really want to just clean the side and put her down on the floor right now. And so like you've got to literally remind yourself every time.
00:32:45
And then you can start to really respond differently. We're all human. You have days where you
00:32:50
you get it. Oh have days like I mean of course I have days where I shout and I lose the plot and I feel terrible but also I know
00:32:55
that she won't hold it against me like the amount of times I was shouted at I I love my mom to death so it's not like
00:33:01
she shouted at me I think she's terrible and I don't love her for today like I think it's okay to not be perfect and not be a perfect parent and the other
00:33:08
day I had a row of Ros and I said I'm I'm sorry I'm not perfect every day I'm sorry that some days I'm so Ros is my
00:33:13
wife I said I'm I'm I'm sorry that I'm not perfect every I love you so much I'm so
00:33:18
affectionate and sensitive but if I'm stressed and I've got something going. Some sometimes I'm snappy, sometimes I'm impatient. And I don't shout at the
00:33:24
kids. I might shout at you and I'm sorry. And it's nice to say that out loud and have a bit of a chat about it
00:33:30
because then you kind of move on and you can just, you know, get on with it and you and you learn from it. You're getting busier, right, with the
00:33:35
app coming with the app stuff you're doing. You're getting more requests than ever before surely. Dude, I'm so I've this has been the year like I've I mean
00:33:41
I've worked hard really have over the last years and during the growing stage like with social media, you know, it's hard building an audience and then I
00:33:48
kind of had great success with the books and now like you know this year since PE with Joe um the 24-hour challenge I I
00:33:55
then done Wake Up with Joe which is three workouts a week for lockdown too cuz I thought they need to exercise, people need to move. I've now had the
00:34:02
book PR. I've been doing radio interviews. I've done the channel for so the BBC children need 24-hour channels.
00:34:07
I've not stopped. Like I don't know how I'm still going, but I now at this moment need more energy than ever
00:34:12
because this is the busy time. This is like leading up to Christmas. I'm also doing a January boot camp. 5 days a week
00:34:18
I'm doing live workouts through the app, you know, which is great because it means people are going to go, I want to give it a go. And it's a really amazing
00:34:24
way of marketing the product, but I'm going to be exhausted. If you think about your state and your mood and how you feel within yourself in
00:34:31
the midst of all this like chaos, and then we've got the pandemic rattling on outside as well. What impact has it had
00:34:36
on you? Um, all of this busyness and now you got two kids, you know, that are you
00:34:42
growing up and screaming at you and don't want to be put down. Have you felt a change?
00:34:47
I deal with it in different ways. Like usually I have these like blocks where I I'll work for like 2 3 months and then I
00:34:53
go, "Right, I'm going to go to Santa Monica for a few weeks or let's go um have a nice week in Dubai just to like unwind and leave the phones and stuff."
00:34:59
And I've missed that. I've missed that just that reset button because I've had a I had like a couple of days away um
00:35:05
just when lockdown was over but it wasn't enough cuz I actually spent my time filming workouts because I said I
00:35:10
was going to do three workouts a week. So although I was there relaxing I'm still there and my what I do is so physical like
00:35:16
you know being being physical and doing exercise but also doing it with such an amazing energy through the camera is so
00:35:22
draining but last week has been the most emotionally draining. I was doing like radio interviews with um like Jamie
00:35:29
Oliver and Ricky Jase and doing all these things. I'm it's out of my comfort zone completely and then I had phone
00:35:34
calls every every hour on the hour to promote the new book. So that is a different type of emotion. And when we
00:35:39
talk about the body coach so you know I am the physical body like the energy and Nikki is like the CTO. He's the brains.
00:35:46
He takes all the all the things I can't the process stuff. Nikki's on a laptop doing Zoom calls 9 hours a day like
00:35:51
managing this agency um and all the other marketing stuff. together we have this perfect kind of relationship where
00:35:57
we are working as equally as hard but we're taking we're doing what we can do so I don't feel like burning out but I
00:36:03
do think at the end of January I need to block a month out so I've taken the month off hoping to go you know somewhere nice I love Costa Rica I'd
00:36:09
love to go with the kids you know just just just unwind and basically when I have that time down off the offline and
00:36:15
I'm not filming it really re-energized me when I come back I'm like I'm like reset and like body coach volume two
00:36:20
ready to go again sort of thing. You talked a little bit there about marriage earlier and you've also you've also heard me on this podcast talking about
00:36:26
marriage, right? I want you to tell me where I I'm getting it wrong
00:36:32
and also why you think I'm getting it wrong. So, I listened to two episodes of your podcast and I I really hear I hear
00:36:38
myself in you when I was like 25 and I was lo and I I feel like a part of you is lost because you've got everything on
00:36:44
the surface you could possibly want. you've you've smashed it in business like you've got an amazing story and you've got you know incredible success
00:36:50
which is wonderful but there's that maybe you're missing that deeper connection with one person you know you've got amazing friends and you've
00:36:55
got a great network of people you work with but I do feel like the the love between one person you know it's
00:37:00
different it's a different kind of relationship where you can always lean on them so when I was 25 I was in a
00:37:05
relationship from 19 and I really I was running away I couldn't commit to it I didn't I used to say like exactly what
00:37:12
you were like this marriage it's like this religious thing. It's a contract and why should that person get half of
00:37:17
what I've got and what it's not going to work. All my other friends are unhappy. They're all divorced. You know, one in three marriages. So, the more you tell
00:37:23
yourself that, the more it becomes true. And the truth is how you feel now is how you feel. And what you believe now is what you believe. But when you meet
00:37:30
someone and you you realize and when you do fall in love in whatever way sense that could be, it was almost like with
00:37:35
Rosie, I was telling her every day I loved her and it wasn't enough. It was I needed to tell her more. I needed to
00:37:41
have something stronger between us. So, I said, "Can we have a baby?" You know, then she fell pregnant and we had Indie. So for me, in my head, the ultimate bond
00:37:48
between two humans is another child. And then when she was pregnant, I never thought I would get excited about the
00:37:54
idea of like proposing and getting married. But it was just it just changed. My mind has changed as I
00:38:00
started to think, do you know, I love this girl. I don't want to be waking up, you know, every other week with a
00:38:05
different girl in a different hotel. I'm like, that's not who I have been. It's never who I'll be. So I I love being with I love being close to one person. I
00:38:11
think I'm quite um emotional like that. Um, and then I asked her to marry me. We had this amazing wedding day. And I do
00:38:17
love being married. And I just think when you have kids and you start seeing your children grow and you you see how
00:38:22
wonderful that can be and how much joy they bring you. I just think your perspective will change over time and you're just not there yet. It might you
00:38:28
might not get that till you're 35. You could be 45. I was 30. I met Rosie at 30. Okay.
00:38:33
And I've been the happiest since I turned 30. Honestly, I've just been I'm commit cuz being honest and being
00:38:39
committed is two of the most wonderful things. being sneaky, being deceitful, not being honest or being jealous and
00:38:45
insecure. They're feelings you do not want to go through your life with. So, when you find someone, you know, be committed and be loyal, it's it's a
00:38:51
really it really takes your love to another level. Do you believe in that? You know, there's a bunch of words people use in uh in this
00:38:57
in this realm of like love and marriage. Uh they say, you know, you got to find your soulmate.
00:39:02
I don't know if it's soulmate, but everyone says, "Oh, hard, you know, love's hard work. Marriage is hard work." It isn't. It doesn't have to be
00:39:08
hard work. Not if you're with the right person. Of course, you could get with someone too young, marry the wrong person, it all goes wrong, and you know,
00:39:14
that's a bad experience, but it doesn't mean that the next relationship won't be better, and you can't improve and learn from it. But, you know, I do feel like
00:39:21
Rosie is is the kind of female version of me. Like, when we met, you know, we were just having so much fun, and she's
00:39:26
she's a wonderful parent. I watch her and I see how patient she is. I think I learn a lot from her because I I I've
00:39:32
got like a two or three minute kind of tolerance of Marley screaming and screaming in my face where I just have to walk out the room. I just can't
00:39:38
handle it. She can be in there like 20 minutes all through the night and I'm like, yeah, with with with Indie crying
00:39:43
or Marley teething and I think it's amazing. She's just got this natural innate like motherly patience and love
00:39:50
and tolerance. So I watch that and I literally like go I need a bit more of that and I sort of learn from it. But
00:39:55
yeah, I mean you know maybe maybe you might have one relationship last 5 years but I do believe that when you are in a
00:40:01
relationship like give it all. Don't don't be thinking this is going to end soon. This my last one didn't work out. I know now it's going to break down and
00:40:08
we're going to end up breaking apart. We're going to end up leaving each other. She'll she'll have an affair. I I'll I'll leave her. It won't work. That
00:40:13
just it's hard to be happy in that situation. So, I think take every relationship and just maximize it to to
00:40:20
the best of your ability like you would with someone that you work with, a business partner. If we went into business together, you try you try and
00:40:25
make that partnership so like awesome and so effective and efficient. And it's the same with a relationship. you've got
00:40:31
to, you know, keep keep doing the things that make you happy and and yeah, I think with Rosie, like just having a
00:40:37
night out, going for dinner. Um, and the, you know, the the secret is if you stop kissing, you're [ __ ] If you
00:40:43
don't kiss your girlfriend and you stop kissing, you just bypass each other and you don't because everything starts from
00:40:48
a kiss. Do you know what I mean? It could become a massage, could become, you know, you might do a bit bit of
00:40:54
hanky panky, but if you stop kissing that one thing, that intimacy, I feel like I feel like everything breaks down.
00:41:00
Seriously, keep kissing. It's one of the It's probably the only thing that I've thought about going and seeing a therapist about is like I have
00:41:06
a fairly negative pessimistic, let's say, perception on romantic
00:41:13
relationships. Um, and I I think I've identified that on one hand I'm my
00:41:18
expectations are probably like somewhat unme unmetable and then on the other hand I kind of see relationships as
00:41:25
being like a bird in a cage is the best way. Where's that come from? Like, so I know your mom and dad and they're arguing
00:41:31
leaning at each other. My my parents So that's the only that that's the only marriage role modeling you're you're
00:41:36
basing your opinion on. Yeah. So I I I have these but when I say my parents screamed at each other, I'm like my mom I've never seen since a
00:41:45
human able to perform the screaming match she did. Nigerian woman and if you don't know Nigerian women I do visualize
00:41:51
it like around a kitchen table. The sound is un like you've never seen. My dad actually said one day, he said,
00:41:57
"I your mom was screaming at me." This is I think when we lived in Manchester, probably before I was born. Your mom was
00:42:02
screaming at me and I went out like went shopping, did all that. She had no idea. I came back and she's still screaming.
00:42:08
She had no idea that I'd left the house. And the the the the sound of it. I I
00:42:13
have this like mental image of my dad sat passively just this like passive white guy just sat there watching TV
00:42:18
just looking at the screen and my African mother like kind of stood above him just bellowing into his face at full
00:42:24
volume for like six hours. She didn't lose energy. We talked about like
00:42:29
exhausting herself. She didn't lose her energy and she would follow him around the house. And so I'm think I looked at
00:42:34
my dad and thought he's trapped and this is what my my you know that that experience of seeing
00:42:40
your mom shout is thatffect has that like affected your you know your are you calm and you know when you argue are you
00:42:45
confrontational are you like cuz me and Rosie are more like silent and we sulk and we're so stubborn and we'll like go two days about talking. We don't scream
00:42:52
and shout at each other. Are you are you quite a shout? I will never shout. Oh so you're calm. Never. I will not do it. I I will the
00:42:58
minute so I will try and explain myself in a very calm way and then I'm like okay I'm going
00:43:03
right and walk away. I will like do you ever say sorry? Do you ever admit you're wrong or do you find it hard to admit? ask me. So if you had asked me
00:43:10
that question two years ago, the answer would have been like no, I never say sorry. Like cuz I always kind of think I'm right and it's like my way or the
00:43:16
highway. In the last year and when when I was I got with this this certain person um who I won't name and
00:43:24
she kind of taught me to like grow up a little bit and and I started to
00:43:29
apologize for things and I started to learn to apologize a little bit more. But I'm I got to be honest. I'm not
00:43:34
going to lie. It's like the whole point of this podcast is not to [ __ ] lie. I'm still not that good at it. It is hard. I'm the same. I find it hard
00:43:40
to say sorry in the moment, but I do if I go away for a little half an hour, an hour, have a walk or do a workout, I do
00:43:45
come back and I go, I was a bit disrespectful there. I do apologize. But yeah, it's an ego thing. It's like you just got to let your guard down. One
00:43:51
thing I say about relationships, which I really think is valuable. I can't remember why I heard it or read it, but it was about you can be in a
00:43:56
relationship with someone and this expectation thing where you want them to do everything perfect and be everything in one and be like this amazing like
00:44:03
just like unicorn, right? But you might find them really attractive and really funny, but intellectually they just
00:44:09
don't challenge you. Just you can't have conversations about work. They don't understand you. But you can ring me or Nikki and we you can get that that that
00:44:15
that part of a relationship with from someone else. So there's no pressure on that person you're with to like be really intelligent and really understand
00:44:22
business and really understand social media. Like that's something I've learned that sometimes you have to love the person for what they've got. you
00:44:27
know, love that they're really affectionate, love that they're really caring and considerate, but maybe other elements of their personality, you have
00:44:33
to get from someone else because the chance of you finding the unicorn is so rare, isn't it? You're going to find that. And and also
00:44:39
you like you might be amazing at certain things, but you might not be good at one thing. I'm not a unicorn. This is the problem.
00:44:44
Who is No one's a No one's a unicorn really. No one's completely perfect because when you're in a relationship,
00:44:50
you want the other person to like, you know, do everything like you and be interested in the same things as you. like Rosy's not into, you know,
00:44:57
motorbikes, but I go my brother and my my little my little brother George and my dad. So, I kind of get I scratch that itch and I come back and then I spend
00:45:03
time with Rosie and the kids. So, it's really about finding the needs at uni as a human being in in maybe in multiple people and then
00:45:10
you can really just focus on what you love about your partner does help. You talked a little I talked a little
00:45:15
bit about there about going to therapy. Have you ever gone to therapy? So, this week I had my deadline for my book,
00:45:21
Happy Sexy Millionaire, which you can now pre-order. And it's been an absolute uh labor of love over the last couple of
00:45:28
years. And because I had the deadline on Sunday, I was head down, smashing it
00:45:34
out. Um, typically like me, forgetting to eat my meals and things like that.
00:45:40
And um, and this is where he saved me once again. And I was in my office until 6:00 a.m. in the morning. Um, was
00:45:46
getting very, very tired. I've had two Hules and um I had dinner as well and
00:45:52
it's for me that was the perfect that was the reason why I've teamed up with Hule because someone like me in that
00:45:58
situation would basically either completely skip meals, I would not get my sort of vitamins and minerals, I
00:46:04
wouldn't get protein, then I'd start feeling like [ __ ] um because I didn't have the time. And that's, as I've said
00:46:10
on this podcast before, the reason I've um I'm so attached to Hu, the company, the brand, the the founder, Julian,
00:46:17
because it really does save my ass. And it has done for three years. And if you are someone like me, you know, that does
00:46:23
have uh a very timelmited life, then I really really recommend you give Hule a
00:46:29
shot. I really recommend you you give berry flavor hu a shot because that is my favorite flavor. And um yeah, so this
00:46:35
week I just wanted to shout it out because you definitely saved me on Sunday when I had my book deadline. And also go and check out my book, Happy
00:46:41
Sexy Millionaire. It's quite nice. It's like um it's like Nesquick, isn't it?
00:46:47
Yeah, it's nice. I do like that. I talked a little bit about there about
00:46:53
going to therapy. Have you ever gone to therapy? I I call it the gym, but yeah, I think my therapy from a kid and I look back
00:47:00
like for sure like I was stressed. I didn't want to go home. I would be always out the house, always playing
00:47:05
sport. I think it was my therapy and I dealt with things through sport and maybe that's why I became the body coach. But I think I had um I had one
00:47:13
therapy session with a counselor once um because I was basically in a relationship I didn't want to be in and I needed to talk to someone about it and
00:47:20
I had that session and I I just spoke and and verbalized everything I was going through and it was almost like
00:47:26
just by saying I was like I know I need to walk away from this now and I I went home and that was it. So it was really
00:47:31
it was an investment. And it was like an hour of my time. Um I I I spoke to someone cuz it wasn't my mom who was
00:47:36
invested, my dad who was invested. It wasn't her parents and my friends who really cared about her. It was like a
00:47:42
completely neutral person. And it really helped because it changed the rest of my life because I left a relationship I
00:47:47
wasn't happy in. I met Rosie. I got married and I had kids, you know. And this is the situation. I was 19 when I
00:47:52
met that girl. I was backpacking. I was in a bar in Australia. You're very different 10 years later. So maybe maybe
00:47:59
there can be such thing as a relationship that's really great at a certain time in your life, but then when it's not right and it isn't working,
00:48:05
having a child and marrying that person is definitely the wrong thing to do. Um, and I didn't really realize that until I
00:48:10
met Rosie, just how how unhappy I probably was in that last relationship. So yeah, I've had it once and I I think
00:48:17
if I if I feel like I I need it, I'd be open to it. I've got a lot of friends that do it. It's like I see it as like
00:48:22
personal training for the mind, isn't it? It's like why not why not take care of your brain and your heart and your mind? And that can be done through
00:48:27
therapy. So, I'm open to it. Um, I just haven't felt I haven't had the calling. I'm more interested in um I really like
00:48:33
the idea of doing an iOS ceremony. Can we do it together? Do you know why? I'm just I I listen to your podcast. I listen to like certain
00:48:40
people that do it and I I'm drawn to it because of that gateway and open up that that even more love and more connection
00:48:46
when you realize we're all so interconnected and obviously you can meditate for 10 years or you can go and
00:48:51
do an arc serum and apparently you get it's like a fast track to that feeling. But yeah, you've talked about it. Have
00:48:56
you have I mean I was in Mexico in Tulum and they they were doing like pot ceremonies out there and I I just
00:49:01
couldn't quite convince myself to do it but I would love to do Iaska one day like go proper into the Amazon do it properly with a shaman and like you know
00:49:08
feel feel that mother nature they talk about that feeling of like the earth and the connected to the human race. It must
00:49:13
be a wonderful feeling. Have you ever done mushrooms? I've never done mushrooms. No, I've never I've never done drugs. So I
00:49:19
couldn't really um I've never done anything like that. I've never done mushrooms or I amasa but I the more so I've just I've just invested
00:49:25
almost a million dollars into a psychedelics company that's using it to cure mental health disorders. We talked
00:49:30
about this didn't we? Yeah. For the psilocybin so my dad was involved in the trials at um the Imperial College London. is involved. He
00:49:36
was basically um one of the uh not the guinea pigs but yeah he it was a trial between psilocybin um a placebo and an
00:49:44
anti-depressant drugs and obviously the the studies come back that like this can really help and it's a natural it's a
00:49:49
natural product from the from the earth so yeah I can see that growing in the next few years for sure when it when it gets app has it been approved in the US
00:49:55
for like yeah so it's in the stuff um don't quote me on this but it's in it's in the final stage of FDA
00:50:02
approval psilocybin so it's very very close And there's a company called Compass Pathways which has just gone public and is as of right now worth
00:50:08
about 2 billion which is really develop leading the pack in developing psilocybin but it's crazy that I've not
00:50:14
tried it but I've looked at all the research and development videos and studies and data and it like blow blew
00:50:20
my mind. Are you are you tempted to try it yourself? Are you scared and nervous about it? Cuz I know the numbers. I've been
00:50:26
through I've looked at every drug and I've I've seen where mushrooms and psilocybin um rank in terms of the harm
00:50:32
they could possibly do to you and the harm they can do to others when you're on them. It's below alcohol. It's below
00:50:37
like every it's at the bottom. It's the bottom thing on the list. Yeah. It's been shown to really um really help with addiction and
00:50:43
depression and and trauma from that. So yeah, I suppose I wonder what the experience like for us who maybe we're not depressed and we're not anxious. I
00:50:49
wonder what that experience would be like. But but yeah, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts. you know, Tim Ferris is big on it. Rogan, you know,
00:50:55
and yeah, it's this kind of it feels like this scary thing, but I suppose because it's been going on for thousands of years, you know, with kind of tribes
00:51:01
and it's not some dirty chemical drug that's been manufactured in the lab. I think it it's non- addictive.
00:51:06
It opens up. So, what they say is it opens up like neurological pathways that maybe is all these memories locked. Did
00:51:12
you hear the Tim Ferris podcast? He said like he done an Iawaska ceremony or maybe it was psilocybin and he had this
00:51:17
vision of trauma that came through that he completely blocked out. Really? Yeah. So he got he experienced um child
00:51:23
abuse like he literally didn't remember it and he had this vision and all these memories of being abused and it like
00:51:30
completely like opened up his his mind. He's now obviously sharing about it but that was like some so it's quite in a
00:51:36
way you don't know what you're unlocking. You can unlock really beautiful memories and amazing things or but it can also
00:51:41
show you like quite traumatic upsetting things but either way like you can learn from it I Do you know what I did this
00:51:46
morning is the the the founder one of the founders of the company a Thai um
00:51:52
which is leading the charge in terms of psychedelics. They're really developing about 10 different compounds in the space. I I said to him I need to get you
00:51:58
on this podcast. Would you come on? And so he's he's um as far as I know he's, you know, he's incredibly successful
00:52:04
biotech guy. He's been doing it for decades and um he's going to come on onto the podcast and really talk through all of these things. So like I gain and
00:52:10
psilocybin and all of that. So that'll be fascinating. I'll be listening to that one. Yeah. But listen, IA mushrooms, psilocybin, if you
00:52:17
want to do it, then I've been saying to to my all these people in this room now, I've been saying, "Let's go and do a retreat with like a shaman." And um
00:52:24
they've told me what the best way to do it is like the best retreat, the best shaman, the best place. I'd love to do
00:52:30
something like that. Yeah, I would be up for it. I mean, it's a it's a it's a real person it's like personal growth. Like you read a lot of
00:52:35
books. I'm not well read. I wish I had more patience and more time and well I wish I had more um commitment and
00:52:41
discipline to reading but I do I do I do I'm drawn to it and it always it almost they say like it will call you like my
00:52:46
dad's done an Iaska ceremony in Wales and he said it just calls you like the plant mother nature like you'll have a
00:52:52
calling one day and it'll be like I'm ready at the moment we're just sort of experimenting with the idea of it and your dad did the psilocybin trial
00:52:57
with Imperial so what was his feedback to you after he did it yeah I mean it was um it sometimes takes
00:53:03
a little bit longer to integrate you know you have the experience And you know it was in a very controlled room
00:53:09
like it's in a proper like clinical setting. So you're like in a hospital room and they're holding your hand and talking through it. And I'm not sure the
00:53:14
exact dosage but he got blasted with a decent dose of psilocybin. Um and yeah you know he saw some things and it
00:53:20
unlocked a little bit of you know trauma and some visual stuff that he saw. But again it's just about moving forward.
00:53:26
It's about it's about taking what you see and integrating into your life and saying I've had these experiences but how can I be present today? How can I
00:53:32
enjoy my life today? And you know, with depression, it's I don't think it's going to be cured. I don't think you can
00:53:37
cure it like that because of the way the brain works, but you're going to learn to deal with it and and spot the signs and kind of counteract it quicker. Um,
00:53:45
but yeah, he he had a positive experience for sure and he's he's really proud that he took part cuz he he genuinely wants to help people. He said
00:53:51
if if people can come off chemical anti-depressants and be given a really beautiful natural um you know natural
00:53:58
product that can actually help them feel happier and and especially for like post-traumatic stress syn disorder like
00:54:04
people dealing with some really really harsh stuff and they're getting blasted with you know anti-depressants which are
00:54:10
very addictive and it's like morphine isn't it? It's like it's not even it's not even like good for you. It's they're very addictive as well. I don't think
00:54:16
you're going to get the same thing. Yeah, the side effects are really really, you know, crazy. Um, sometimes
00:54:21
I think they're opioids. I think is it opioids? Yeah, anti-depress I think opioid I think anti-depressants are like
00:54:26
opioids or amphetamines. It's one of them. It's like it's basically the drug that you know you do not want to be taking in a very small dose but over
00:54:32
time it can real generate real addiction and you see it in America like the prescription drug addiction over there is is really destroying people's lives
00:54:39
over there. My next question, you would have heard this on the podcast if you listened to the Eddie Hearn one. Uh, it's kind of a
00:54:45
new question I'm asking and it's a question I really really love because I think it gives a unique sense of perspective. Um, you're an incredibly
00:54:51
busy guy. You're running around at the moment doing this, that, and the other, you know, all over the place. Um,
00:54:57
if you found out, god forbid, touch glass, um, that this week was your last week for whatever reason, god forbid, or
00:55:03
you walked out here and you got hit by a a truck, what what would you regret
00:55:09
having not done or not doing more of? I really wish I had like this long list of bucket things that I wish I'd done. But
00:55:15
I'm I've always even when I was at university, like I would go traveling in my half term, my summer holidays. I
00:55:22
always I've always maximized life to the the at that moment in time, you know. I've always I've never kind of I've
00:55:28
never regretted or like missed out on things. I've always traveled with my friends. I've always, you know, done the things I want. So, if I had a week left
00:55:35
on Earth, I wouldn't really regret anything. I'd be proud. I'm proud of what I've achieved in this short time. I'm 35. I feel like I've I've been good.
00:55:41
I've done some good things. I'd probably bring everyone together and like throw my wedding party again cuz my wedding day was wicked. Like I'd all you know
00:55:47
your best friends and all your mate your mates and we had a fun fair and we had all the food and we were dancing and I
00:55:52
think I'd try and recreate that if I knew I had seven days. I'd get everyone together and say look it's my last week. Come down. Let's have another blowout
00:55:57
and have a party. Um but I wouldn't regret Yeah. I just really wouldn't. I I think it's a shame to live your life
00:56:03
like that. You know, regretting and wishing your childhood was different. ing you know you you I've and I've got
00:56:08
friends that kind of live in that mindset of always looking back and almost thinking about a moment in time if they just done it differently they
00:56:14
were like life would have been different today but you can't think like that you can't get stuck between the future and the past can you cuz that's really
00:56:20
really depressing whereas if you actually just think look I've done what I've done even the bad things and the
00:56:26
times I wasn't nice or disrespectful like I learned from it and today I'm a better person for it. A lot of people
00:56:32
when when you ask them that question, they reflect on like a lack of balance in their life. They'll say, "Oh god, I work too much. I didn't see the kids
00:56:38
enough." And and those kinds of things. That's typically what you hear. It's like, "Oh god, do you know I really wish I'd spent more time with this person or
00:56:44
or that person." I think if I was to answer that question, I'd probably feel I'd probably say that. I'd say, "Why didn't I spend enough time with my
00:56:50
family?" I think the reason is because a lot most traditional businesses like if you're a graph like Eddie Hearn always on the road always around the world you
00:56:57
know footballers again away every weekend they're training they're you know traveling the world musicians away from their family and it's hard for like
00:57:03
you know stabil stability and so they do sacrifice a lot for that fame and success whereas my fame and success has
00:57:09
come through an iPhone in my kitchen so I've really even before lockdown I filmed all my workouts at home so I have
00:57:15
a great balance where I can do what I'm doing and be successful but also leave my phone for 2 weeks and go away and not
00:57:21
not worry about it. Or I can, you know, put my phone down. Like I I I spend quality time my kids every day. I'm I'm
00:57:27
adamant about that. So I do, you know, breakfast. I make them breakfast every day. I have 2 and 1 half hours. So
00:57:32
between like 5 and 7:30 where I don't have my phone and I do dinner time, bath time, but story time. Like I love it.
00:57:39
It's like my routine. And I and I know get once they're down, I can go back to work or, you know, watch a film. But it's having little moments like that.
00:57:45
Just having that structure so that you don't feel like you've missed out and you ask them how their day has been. And Indy's favorite thing is like she loves
00:57:50
cooking and she loves doing her handwriting. So even just running in there and doing 10 minutes of handwriting with her. I mean she's 2
00:57:56
years old and she's doing the alphabet. She's she's got like these dots. You follow the dots and just seeing her with
00:58:02
a shaky hand to like now a month later she's banging out the A to Z and it's like immaculate. That's that's fun. It's
00:58:08
amazing. So I'm not missing out on these moments. Although I'm really busy, I'm also optimizing my time with them as
00:58:14
well if you know what I When you said that India's really into cooking, I thought, "Oh god, she's going to be the next body coach." And then I thought, "Oh god, I wonder if Joe would want her
00:58:20
to be on social media." Oh, I don't know. I had this dilemma with Rosie, you know, when I was bringing out my cookbook, my weaning 15
00:58:27
book. So, I got a book deal and I was genuinely enjoying that journey. I was learning to wean indie for the first time. I didn't know what to do. I was
00:58:33
working with a nutritionist. Um, and I shared so much. You know, we got 50,000 pre-orders and I worked hard for them
00:58:39
pre-orders because I shared everything, you know. I shared the dinner. I was It was camera at breakfast. cuz it was
00:58:44
camera at lunch. It was Indie, do you like that, darling? Do another one of them. Like, so I shared so much in order to have that success. But now I've kind
00:58:51
of I've just gone a little I just don't want the phone out during dinner time. So I'm producing less content. I'm not
00:58:56
producing as much recipe stuff because I want to have that time just with us. And I used to just film every Gusto recipe.
00:59:03
Every recipe was on Instagram. So yeah, I've had to sort of step back a little bit. And there's no way you're going to
00:59:08
keep your kids on social media. It's just whether they're 10 or 15, they're going to eventually get it. Would you
00:59:13
like to though if you could? There was two buttons in front of you. One of them was she won't join social media until
00:59:18
she's 21 and the other one was she'll join at 10. Oh, 100% no. If I have if I could have my life without social media like I have
00:59:25
an unhealthy relationship with it. And I you know I watched the social dilemma on Netflix and I was like I cannot believe
00:59:30
how addictive we are. How these devices are so welld designed. I would I wish me
00:59:35
Rosie and and the kids weren't on social media but I know I wouldn't have been the body coach. PJ wouldn't have
00:59:41
happened. So, it's almost this like trade-off. It's like a trade-off, isn't it? It's like if you want to have this success and have this amazing life and also
00:59:47
reach millions of people, the only way you can do that is is social media. It's not TV, it's not radio, it's social
00:59:52
media. So, it has its pros and cons, but I I hope that I hope that we kind of we
00:59:58
can somehow learn to control this mental health epidemic that we've got going on with social media and the narcissism of
01:00:04
Instagram. I just hope that we kind of go, actually, you know what, that was cool in 2010 and 2020, but maybe now
01:00:10
let's be more humble. Let's just be kinder and let's like share useful content. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Yeah. Cuz you know in she's going to get
01:00:17
she's going to get her phone. She's going to open it on that first day when she's 10 years old and she's going to see Kylie Jenner in a bikini on a yacht
01:00:27
in a Louis Vuitton bikini on a massive yacht looking back at it with her ass
01:00:33
looking perfect and perfect boobs and a perfect face and perfect hair. and India's going to stare down into that
01:00:40
phone and think, okay, yeah, that's my life. Yeah. And it is and it's that comparative thing and it
01:00:46
it happens to me. I I follow a lot of Instagram accounts and you know, my explore page is basically like motorbikes or it's you know, fitness
01:00:53
models and it it's like because I'm in that in that in that kind of atmosphere in that that um world and it does you
01:00:59
think oh these guys are in such good shape, you know, I'm looking a bit skinny. I'm a little bit pit like whoever you are, you still start to
01:01:04
compare yourself. It affects your confidence whether you know it subconsciously or not. And you know, I wish I was more tanned. I wish I was on
01:01:10
holiday. I wish I had a bit more muscle this. I wish I wasn't so skinny or I wish I didn't have that little bit of body fat on my tummy this year because
01:01:16
you you're just bombarded with these visual representation. So yeah, I think that in that effect it almost like you
01:01:21
can't really stop that if you if you're looking at it all the time. You can't it's almost like you have to just
01:01:26
unfollow some of those account. You said, didn't you said like unfollow the accounts that don't serve you. And I've started doing that. If I get to
01:01:32
one, I go why did I follow that? Bang. Unfollow. Do you know what it is as well? So I was when I wrote my I started writing my well I finished my book now
01:01:38
but when I started writing the book um people quite crazy at the title's happy sexy millionaire and in this one chapter
01:01:45
I really focus in on comparison and this is an bit of an exclusive and I go through all of the studies on why we
01:01:51
compare ourselves to other people and why we compare our you know our car to someone else's car and the conclusion I
01:01:57
came to is we're not actually going to ever be able to stop comparing because our brains are wired that way for
01:02:02
survival. They like that's how our brain works. It's very very lazy. If you show someone three TVs in a shop, an
01:02:09
expensive one, a middle one, and a a a cheap one. Statistically, people will pick the middle one
01:02:14
because they think that one's going to break and it's [ __ ] the cheap one, and they think the expensive one is maybe too flashy. So, if you show them three
01:02:21
steaks on a menu, statistically people will pick the one below the most expensive one. Yeah. You know, even I actually when you
01:02:26
come to say that I sort of feel the same like I'll be like I don't know I don't need that, you know, the waggy one because I' I'm happy with a 20 one in
01:02:33
the middle or whatever. Yeah, you're right. It extends across everything. If I said to you, Joe, would you rather um drive
01:02:39
10 minutes to save £10 on a 200 jacket or drive 10 minutes to save £10 on a 20
01:02:47
pound jacket? People go, "Well, I I'll drive I'll save the£10 on the 10 on the 10 pound jacket." And they go, "Why?
01:02:53
It's 10 minutes. going to cost you to drive and you're going to save £10. But the brain is just assume it's like very
01:02:59
the conclusion is yeah what's the sum what's the conclusion I'm interested that because I'd like to know what you're sharing about that the conclusion is that our brains are so
01:03:06
so lazy they make such lazy snap decisions and conclusions because those
01:03:11
snap decisions helped us to survive when we're when we were 10,000 years a lion's running towards you can't [ __ ] like
01:03:18
right okay is it you've got to just so our brain does it at super speed and and in the context of social media it's like
01:03:24
I loved my Nokia Yeah, until until the new one came out, the iPhone comes out, right? I was the
01:03:30
the proudest kid in school showing everyone like, "Oh, look, snake. I can do snake on here." But then but then the minute that same
01:03:36
thing, which hasn't changed in value, exists in a world of iPhones, which is what social media is. It's like me
01:03:42
looking at Kylie Jenner immediately, even though I haven't changed in value, I am less than.
01:03:48
Our brain tells you. No, I agree. I agree with that. And I I feel that myself sometimes when I when I watch that show, the Netflix documentary
01:03:54
um the social dilemma, it did say all of the guys that created the products, that created the like buttons, all those people said, "My kids aren't on social
01:04:01
media." And that's the alarm bell. It's like saying, you know, it's like um that joke of, you know, I wouldn't trust an
01:04:06
eye surgeon who's wearing glasses. Like I'm getting my eyes laid on Saturday, by the way. Really? But like they say, you know, don't you know, if that person
01:04:12
that created it and that does it every day is saying to you like get your kids off social it's not good for their mental health. And that that is what it
01:04:18
is. It's not about it. I don't think it kills ambition. I think it just really affects people's mental health
01:04:24
and their self-esteem. Their self-esteem. Yeah. And sometimes that's irre irreversible. And you could be like a young teenager that has an
01:04:31
eating disorder, you know, all through your life or is um is is binging or undereating or, you
01:04:38
know, not respecting your body and that can really stem from like how you feel about yourself, right? So I I try and
01:04:44
use my social media to obviously promote healthy food and fitness. That's a positive part of social media and and I
01:04:49
think your content is positive. I think some of the quotes that you share like I you know like the 10 things and all these little sometimes I really want to
01:04:56
go bang wow like it's just a nice little light bulb moment. So you're using it for positive and we have to just always
01:05:02
focus on that. Focus on the people that are bringing the good stuff out of it. I've I think you've probably heard me say before that my the way I use my
01:05:07
Instagram I genuinely believe has like saved my life a little bit because I would have before if you scroll down my
01:05:13
Instagram right now you'll see what I was like oh picture of a Lamborghini, picture of a Louis Vuitton bag and then
01:05:19
at some point when I became a CEO of a company and I felt a sense of responsibility not to be that guy. I thought okay so how can I use this? I'll
01:05:25
post quotes and because I've done that for the last like I don't know two three years it's meant that when I do have
01:05:31
it it means that I don't buy stuff to post it and I if I'm in a helicopter going over Sri Lanka sat next to my
01:05:38
girlfriend which I was no one will know because I actually don't have a place to put it so I'm now making decision
01:05:43
unless you're on your close friends list that's yeah I'm so glad I'm on that that's why I get so nice yeah that's
01:05:49
only there's only 100 people on there but like I I don't have a place to put it and so when I'm making the decision
01:05:54
It's not based on social media cuz I know I'm not going to be able to tell really anybody other than like my a couple of my close friends. My question
01:05:59
though, which is kind of attached to that is about money. Something that a lot of people probably won't talk to you about. Now listen, I
01:06:06
it's always uncomfortable. It's just awkward even when articles come out like Joe buys this much, you
01:06:12
know, this million pound house. It's like why is that important? But I just know that people are obsessed, aren't they? So ask what you want to ask and
01:06:17
I'll be honest. Yeah. So an unavoidable consequence of success. Like the thing is, the reason why I'm actually not uncomfortable about asking you this question is because if
01:06:25
there's anyone on planet Earth on off camera that I know has the most genuine sincere intentions, it is you. Probably
01:06:31
of all the people I've met, I'm like, I can't think of a guest I've met who is more sincere about their intentions more. Thanks, Steven. Your maximum
01:06:37
sincerity, right? So, some people are as well, but your maximum. So, um I've got no problem asking you this question,
01:06:42
which is an unavoidable consequence of your success over the last year previously is money, right? It's what
01:06:49
allows you to have a camera to do PE with Joe, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, definitely. So, this year, I mean, you've made a lot
01:06:55
of money, right? Like every year. Um, what role does money play in your life? Just be honest with me.
01:07:01
It's a it's that it's that thing of, you know, it talk we talk about, you know, freedom of time and like, you know,
01:07:06
owning Yeah. I've always been about time and being with friends and family. So, for me, it's like it's it's removed a
01:07:13
lot of stress cuz when I was a kid, I remember money was a stressor. Like we, you know, we had um we we never had food
01:07:19
in the house. So my mom would have to go to my ns and we'd have to get like borrow bought pints of milk and like running in next door. You know, when
01:07:25
you're on a council estate, it was quite common. You'd go and ask for a pint of milk or a couple of I remember asking for like a bag of sugar for our cereal
01:07:31
and stuff. So I I didn't have any money growing up and you know I was on school dinners, you know, I was my mom was on
01:07:37
benefits. So it was it was all like Iceland two for one, buy them free. It was crap food, you know, and that affects that affects things as well, you
01:07:44
know, the food you're eating. But I I suppose for me when I started to make money, it was a gradual thing. I didn't win the lottery and wake up a million
01:07:50
pounds, you know, I I released my online plan and one person signed up and then it was 10 and it grew and it was gradual
01:07:56
and so it was a nice way of be and like with my followers, it was a nice gradual thing. I didn't just jump off of um Love
01:08:01
Island with 2 million followers and have money thrown at me and I think that does affect your ego differently and I think
01:08:07
anyone that's young that gets thrown into the media with money and fame, it would affect you in a certain way. Um,
01:08:13
so it definitely allowed me to have more freedom and to take care of my family. I think I'm not someone who has been
01:08:19
successful and left people behind. That would make me seriously unhappy. I've helped my brother out. I've helped my
01:08:24
dad, you know, I got my mom a house. We've done amazing holidays together like with all the boys, you know, they know I'm there if they need me. And and
01:08:31
that's that's a nice feeling. But yeah, the question is around motivation, around money as well. I feel like as
01:08:36
time's gone on, I become less motivated by it. And I remember that story you said about you're up here and you could have run downstairs and sent email and
01:08:42
got 20 grand. I have days that too where I think I could go and do another gusto post and 10,000 people might sign up or
01:08:49
I could go and film another workout and it could get 2 million views. And I have and and when I feel like that I have to
01:08:55
remind myself of like why I do what I do and and that mission thing about there's someone at the end of that YouTube video
01:09:01
just waiting for a new workout and they live in scun for when they've got no money in their proper skin and they're waiting for the workout and I remind
01:09:07
myself of that. So yeah, money money allows it just allows freedom. It's less stress. And money was always something
01:09:14
we always argue about. I think maybe my marriage, I'll be honest, is easier because we don't argue about money. And maybe your mom and dad used to argue
01:09:20
about money, like school uniform, the new trainers you wanted, the school trip, you go, like I remember like going on a school trip was really hard for my
01:09:26
mom and dad. We couldn't afford to do the school trip sometimes. And you know, they would always work really hard and it would, you know, sometimes I did,
01:09:31
sometimes I didn't. So, I think having a bit more money in the bank means there's less pressure on you as a person and
01:09:37
therefore you can sort of you can go through life a bit easier. But I had to overcome, as we talked about kind of earlier, I had to overcome that
01:09:43
that feeling though, like that, a [ __ ] if more money isn't going to have an impact, then what the what the hell are
01:09:49
we doing, Steve? Like, what are we doing here? Cuz, you know, 16-year-old Steve told me it was money was the whole game.
01:09:55
You get more of it, you get more and more happy. It's just like that. Your happiness goes up with your bank balance. Does your ego inflate? cuz I I can I can
01:10:00
imagine when you said about, you know, I used to go to like China, white and punk and like, you know, studio bon and I
01:10:07
never had money. I was skint. I was a university kid. I had like 20 quid in my pocket. I'd be in there on a freebie. But I imagine if you had money at that
01:10:13
time, you'd be the one with the bottles spraying it about and all the lights and all the girls come with a big flares. Is that what you were like? Did it inflate
01:10:18
your ego? You you spend more money? You know what? I I And I've got to be as self-aware as I possibly can be here. I
01:10:24
um I don't think it's ever had an impact on my perception of myself. However, I did like I've never I genuinely feel the
01:10:31
same opinion of myself as I always have since I was three. Like I've it's never
01:10:37
changed. But I bet people around you changing like cuz they knew Steve had the dough and you were there and all the girls would come over. I was rolling into clubs and spending. I
01:10:43
I remember this one club in Manchester called Neighborhood. They had this little star next to my name cuz I was like the number one spender and I'd walk
01:10:49
in there and get five bottles of Don Preon. I didn't think I was anything else but I was still doing it. Like I
01:10:54
you that's a really important point to make. Like you you hear about these rich [ __ ] and these like young kids that
01:10:59
like they get all this money then they start treating people like [ __ ] and they change. All of my friends say to me you haven't changed at all.
01:11:06
You just you just bought you just I suppose you were like the facilitator. You just you were the fun you brought
01:11:11
people together and you and you could have the fun. And I think you know maybe if I had a bit money at that time maybe I would have done those things cuz I do
01:11:16
I mean my thing now is going to nice restaurants. I love going to like Zuma or No and having a meal with my friends.
01:11:21
I I didn't have that kind of flashy kind of like nightclub vibe, but you know, at the time, the thing is at that time that
01:11:27
was what you wanted to do at that time. You don't do it now. And I think if you had fun, like it's good. It's all good. But yeah, money
01:11:32
I got out my system. Yeah. Get out your system. And it's weird because I' I'd looked at those people in the clubs and I'd looked
01:11:37
at rich people and thought, "Oh god, like yeah, when I when I become one of them, then I'll be super happy." So then
01:11:43
you go and do it. I went and got this massive [ __ ] mansion in the countryside and I'm sat there like, "Nope."
01:11:48
Yeah. spray the bottles for a year and you're getting all the bottles for a year and you're like, "Okay, nope." So, when you um when you like when you
01:11:55
you exited, you know, or even before that, you you've been financially secure for a long time. Has your motivation dropped or increased? Because I at the
01:12:03
moment, I'm feeling quite demotivated, but I'm more excited by the legacy and the potential of like building the body
01:12:08
coach to a point that in 20 years time, I can look back when I'm a bit older and go, I started that, I created that
01:12:13
company, you know, that's still going. Did you find yourself lost motivation cuz you were like, you know what, I can
01:12:19
chill now. I ain't got I ain't got the the hustle in me anymore, mate. It's a really good question and again, I've been writing a lot about
01:12:24
motivation lately, so I think I've got a pretty good answer to this. Um, and you know, one of the the best sort of easiest answer to this question is just
01:12:31
referring to my gym routine. I think you might have heard on the podcast, I said in one of the episodes that every
01:12:36
February and March, I'm the most motivated person on planet Earth to work out. And I say to myself, I'm going to
01:12:41
get I'm have a great body for summer. And then summer comes, I drop the photo on social media, summer ends, and I
01:12:49
literally can't bring myself to the gym because my motivation, my why was anchored to a timeline, which is summer
01:12:55
and looking good. And so the minute I post, and everyone likes it, it was like I genuinely couldn't get myself to the gym and I was going like
01:13:01
two times a day before. And this relates to our motiv our other motivations in other parts of our life. Like when you
01:13:07
lose when you lose the anchor with your why, which is what you described after PE with Joe. Yeah. You've got to [ __ ] find it again.
01:13:13
It's like the gold medalist. You've got to go and find it again and you've got to reanchor yourself to something that hopefully doesn't have a short-term
01:13:19
timeline against it. Gary Vaynerchuk says the same thing. He says, "The worst day of my life will be when I buy the Jets." It's been his
01:13:24
Yeah, that's his thing, isn't it? It's forever. It's his moonshot. And you you I hadn't hear that before that that term moonshot
01:13:29
is nice because it's like Joe, don't just do something you know you can do in 6 months. Do something you think
01:13:35
will take you 20 years. This is what the conversation we had, right? That's what you said. And I went home and I was thinking the same. I said, Nikki, I said,
01:13:41
I love that. I love the idea of a moonshot. What's our moonshot? And he's like, "Well, our moonshot is that we build the body coach and we have an exit
01:13:47
so that someone comes along and buys it and it continues to flourish for years to come." Because otherwise, I was the
01:13:52
it's like Mr. Motivator. Smashed it in the 80s or 90s, whatever it was. And I would have just been the body coach, the Mr. Mo of this time unless I build it to
01:14:00
sell and I build it to sustain itself and grow and continue to help people. And that's really where my head's now. I think I've had a shift in my mentality
01:14:06
towards that. But I did lose motivation at several parts of my life. And it was always as I described with the 20k and email
01:14:11
downstairs. It was when I was doing things without that real intrinsic deep
01:14:17
s why. So when before social chain started I had no motivation to do any marketing for anybody or to send emails
01:14:23
to anybody. And then social chain starts and I'm going to the [ __ ] Ukraine at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. I spent oh
01:14:28
what was it? I spent 11 of the 12 months last year in hotel rooms happy driving for this mission of building this
01:14:34
company with super key thing with people I loved. Yeah. Right. because it didn't have to be
01:14:39
social media. We had a purpose. We had a worthwhile goal. I was working with people I loved towards that worthwhile
01:14:46
goal. And I felt competent in doing so. And if you have those three things like competence, a worthwhile goal, and you're working with people you love. And
01:14:53
and lastly, I'd say a sense of control like autonomy cuz a lot of people don't we have that in our lives. A lot of
01:14:58
people working in factories and other industries don't have that sense feeling of autonomy over their time. And have you got the hustle now? Could you
01:15:03
like go back and do the 11 months on the roads too? cuz I remember I remember you used to always be in an airport always rolling that little wiggly thing around.
01:15:10
I thought it must be like no matter how much money you're no matter how much money and how much you're building there
01:15:15
must be an element of loneliness and like exhaustion where you think I just need to be like settled in one place and now you're in London. Do you think
01:15:20
you're sticking about or are you going to hit the road again? Um great question and it's something I've reflected on. If you told me now to
01:15:26
fly to the Ukraine and do a talk, I'd be like [ __ ] off. I've said this to my assistant the other day. I said I can't understand where it where the motivation
01:15:33
came from and it's because I've lost it. I've lost the anchor. I've quit social tone. So when when I even with this
01:15:39
mindset, I think go to the [ __ ] Ukraine and do a talk at 9:00 a.m. to a
01:15:44
bunch of people for an hour. [ __ ] off. Yeah. You lost it. I've lost it cuz cuz I've quit. So my
01:15:50
anchor's gone and I can't even get myself back into the mindset. However, I will get my anchor back at some point. Yeah.
01:15:56
And I'll find something else that And I'm not trying to find it at the moment. Yeah. Just it's nice to slow things down. I think the lockdown's helped us
01:16:02
just think we don't need to be on this hamster all the time. Like it's all right. A few months of the year like you said, you know, nothing in nature blooms
01:16:08
all year round. Like you can have a couple of quiet months cuz you know, you know, your event didn't happen. I really wanted to be at that event in
01:16:13
Manchester, but I'm hoping that happens. I I need to come. You know, there's going to be different momentuge. Yeah, I know. I mean, like, mate, you showed me
01:16:19
the music. I got me and Nikki got mad like goosebumps just listening to the music you're going to play. Um, but yeah, you've got loads of head. think
01:16:25
it's important to just have these months where you go, I'm not everywhere at the moment, but I know in six months I've got this great project and there's your
01:16:31
moment to bloom. And that's kind of where my head's at now. Rather than like, come on, what should we do now? Let's do another this. Let's let's let's
01:16:36
do more of this. I'm like, it's okay to be not busy and not be successful for a few months and to create a void in your life. This
01:16:42
is what my mentor said to me. He's one of I think he was one of the the first investor ever in Spotify. He said, Steve, I met him after I resigned and he
01:16:48
said, "Steve, listen, it's so tempting to just sort of grab the bull again and just go and run and run and run and
01:16:53
run." He said, "But the reason you were successful before is because you were really hungry." Yeah. So he said, "Create a void in your life.
01:17:00
Resist the temptations just to run back into something and just let it be."
01:17:05
A concept that's probably not easy for me or you to understand. Like just the I'm getting it now, though. I'm getting it now because I, like I said, I've
01:17:11
always had like two books a year. I've had a DVD out. I've had merchandise, pots and pans, you know, protein stuff.
01:17:18
I've always had something. But actually now I know I need to just chill out and take some time off because I can't I don't want to be hammer I don't want to
01:17:24
be selling stuff to people all the time. I want to just be get back to my free content what I'm good at what I start
01:17:29
you know the organic stuff that I genuinely started doing in the beginning because that's when I'm happiest when I'm getting millions of views on my
01:17:34
YouTube channel. I love that. I love that people are actually like doing those workouts. It's 15 minutes of my
01:17:40
time but it's helping someone really transform their day. And so I'll continue to um you know push that
01:17:45
mission which is to get people moving. And if it's with even it's one person a day like it's enough sometimes.
01:17:50
I just reflected then when you said that I think of one of the conversations we had in that restaurant which was you were saying you know I've done the pee
01:17:56
with Joe and what's next and I saying I was I remember saying to you like Joe this is a false peak cuz like I did I say this
01:18:01
and I said I don't think I'm going to achieve anything in my life that's going to have more impact because there may
01:18:06
never be another lockdown and there may never be like 80 million people in their living room doing my workouts again. But you were like Joe don't be silly like
01:18:12
there's something else. There's something there has to be. Like if you don't you're going to lose it. you can lose motivation. So yeah, you said the
01:18:18
thing about the moonshot like imagine eradicating, you know, whatever it may be, like going for that real like steel
01:18:24
Steve Steve Jobs or Bill Gates like vision of like changing the world. It's exciting. It might never happen, but at least have a crack.
01:18:30
But you have a you this is why I refer to it as a false peak because mountaineers when they're climbing, they look up the mountain and they see these
01:18:36
peaks and it because of the perspective of when you're climbing a mountain, it looks like the top and so they climb and
01:18:42
they stop and they go, "Oh, [ __ ] That was but it's a false peak." And I think for you this is going to be a false pig
01:18:47
because now you have more power than you've ever had. So you have this I in my view again not telling how you live
01:18:53
your life. You have a responsibility to you're a [ __ ] MBE. You're you know everyone knows your name now and you've got a power to do things on a global
01:19:01
level that even I'm not sure yet you realize you're capable of doing. And I think when you realize what you're capable of then um you're going to find
01:19:08
a why because listen you you can't waste the power you've got. You just simply can't. And there's a lot of pain out
01:19:14
there. There's a lot of people getting fat. There's a lot of people not eating right. And they need someone that has your power. It's like it's like, you
01:19:20
know, life has given you this this responsibility and gone, Joe, listen, we need you. And I think that's I mean, that's enough to get out of bed for
01:19:26
every day. That is the goal, mate. And it's it's so lovely to hear you say that. And I do believe that we have a purpose and we
01:19:31
have we have an energy inside us. And I I bumped into this guy once on the street in London and he was really I think he was a shaman of some sort. And
01:19:37
he he he basically put his hand on my shoulder. He he does my workouts and he's like, "There's something about you
01:19:42
like you've got an energy. There's something pushing you forward, isn't there? Like it's more than views and fame and numbers. Like there's something
01:19:48
inside said, "Yeah, like there is it's this energy that is constantly like just go and film the workout. I know you're
01:19:53
tired, but do it." And it's that it's that thing of giving. I I'm my happiest when I'm giving and sharing. And the
01:19:59
minute I stop that, even if I sell the body coach, you know, I know that that moment will come where I feel like, you
01:20:05
know, I still need to be doing what I'm good at and still need to be reconnecting and um that is my energy. That's that. And I didn't have that. I
01:20:11
was really lost and confused until 25. I came back from this trip to America. I started to become a personal trainer and
01:20:17
it was like I just knew in that moment this is what I was going to do and I've just put all my energy and love into it since. So yeah, let's let's see what we
01:20:24
can do in 2021. Thank you so much for your time, Joe. It's been an absolute pleasure and I'm super excited to to bring you back on
01:20:29
for a third time once you've conquered the world. And we'll be like, we were sat here and you said this and then
01:20:35
I know it's been a pleasure, mate, and I really do enjoy your podcast. I take little nuggets from it. I think you're always sharing a positive message. So,
01:20:40
keep doing it. Um, it's good to see that you're growing and building and I, um, I hope this episode does really well for you.
01:20:46
Thank you, mate. Appreciate you. Always nice one. Good luck, mate. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and learnings. I'm continue to be
01:20:52
inspired by you. I can't wait to see what you achieve in the next few years. Now, go and get your moonshot.
01:21:00
Go and build a rocket. [Music]
