March 20, 2025 • 63 mins
Episode Title: Vulnerability, Habits, and Finding Purpose with Stefan Hines
In this week’s episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, I sit down with Stefan Hines, a former British Army veteran turned business and life coach, to discuss how embracing vulnerability can be a powerful strength—especially in leadership and personal growth.
We explore the difference between vulnerability and weakness, and why being open about our struggles actually makes us stronger. Stefan shares his life audit exercise, a practical tool to help you reflect on your life and identify what truly brings you joy and purpose. He also introduces the Hero’s Journey method, a unique way to reframe your past experiences and intentionally design the next phase of your life.
If you’ve ever struggled with self-doubt, this episode will help you shift your mindset. Instead of seeing doubt as a weakness, you’ll learn how to turn it into an opportunity for growth. We also talk about habit formation—why visualizing your future self can be the key to making lasting changes and breaking free from limiting patterns.
Additionally, we dive into daily mindset practices for improving mental well-being, managing stress, and aligning your actions with your purpose. From the power of breathwork to focusing only on what you can control and influence, Stefan shares powerful strategies to help you gain clarity and confidence in your journey.
🔹 What You’ll Learn:
✔ Why vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness
✔ The Life Audit Exercise for self-reflection
✔ How to reframe self-doubt into a growth opportunity
✔ The power of habit formation & future self-visualization
✔ Practical daily mindset strategies for resilience
🎧 Tune in now and start embracing your authentic self!
Introduction: 5-Day Journey to Lower Stress & Improve Performance
Introduction: 5-Day Journey to Lower Stress & Improve Performance
About Stephen:
Stephen Hinds MBA, a leader, mentor, and visionary who has dedicated his life to service, transformation, and legacy building.
With 29 years of service in the British Army and a decade of mentoring 8-figure founders, executives, and industry icons, Stephen has mastered the art of leadership, resilience, and strategic growth. But beyond the titles and accolades, his mission is simple: helping high achievers transition from success to significance.
Many of us build careers, achieve financial milestones, and earn respect, only to find ourselves wondering, What now?
Stephen understands this better than most. Through his company, "Beyond Training International" he guides leaders who feel stuck despite their success, helping them rediscover purpose, rewire their mindset, and craft a future that aligns with their values.
However, his impact goes beyond business. As the Managing Trustee of Rila’s Dream UK, Stephen is also deeply committed to the rescue and rehabilitation of Bulgarian street dogs, a testament to his servant leadership and dedication to making a difference.
ECI is about connections that elevate and empower, and Stephen embodies that spirit fully. Please make him feel at home!
Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenhindscoaching/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This week's episode, we talkabout why vulnerability is a
(00:03):
strength rather than a weakness,particularly in leadership and
personal growth.
We look at the power of buildinggreat habits and how this can be
strengthened with a future selfvisualization.
How self doubt can be a growthopportunity if approached with
awareness and the right mindset.
And we talk about dailypractices for mindset and
(00:25):
wellbeing.
Welcome to Man (00:28):
A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men
navigate modern life, find theirtrue purpose, and redefine
manhood.
I'm your host, James, and eachweek, inspiring guests share
their journeys of overcomingfear Embracing vulnerability and
finding success.
(00:48):
From experts to everyday heroes.
Get practical advice andpowerful insights.
Struggling with career,relationships or personal
growth?
We've got you covered.
Join us on Man Quest to FindMeaning.
Now, let's dive in.
James (01:05):
Today I have my special guest, Stefan.
How you doing, Stefan?
Stephen Hinds (01:10):
Very well, thanks, James.
Thanks for having me.
James (01:13):
So, to start off, just tell us about yourself.
Can you tell us a bit aboutyourself, please?
Stephen Hinds (01:18):
Sure.
I'm Steph Steven.
I'm 58 years old, Scottish, incase you can't tell, but I live
in Germany.
I spent 29 years in the BritishArmy traveled all over the
world, served in Afghanistan,Iraq, things like that.
Married a German lady, and whenI retired from the army we
decided to stay here in Germany.
(01:39):
So I'm actually bi bilingual andalso binational, so I have a
German passport as well.
Thank you, Boris.
Thank you, Brexit.
So I, I now work as a coachthrough Primarily as a business
coach, I started as a languagecoach, business and language,
and then I moved into businesscoaching.
(02:01):
I've worked with corporationsbut my, I'll give you an example
of how I transitioned from beinga classic business coach into
being a kind of life coach forbusiness executives.
Was I could help them with theirbusiness strategy, but my, my
passion came alive when theystarted to tell me things that
were going on in their personallife with relationships, with
(02:23):
their children, with limitingbeliefs that they were having,
that kind of thing.
And because it resonated with mystory, when I left the army,
Joined the army at 16, left at45, suddenly realized that my
entire identity was built aroundmy career.
Because I was living, eating andbreathing that role.
(02:43):
And I went from high profile,high tempo position in
Afghanistan, came home andimmediately retired.
And then sat at home on my own,without responsibility, without
direction, without just everypart of my life had been changed
all in one fell swoop.
And that caused me toessentially have a breakdown.
(03:03):
And this is a very abridgedversion of the story.
But, you know, it was in myrecovery from that, that caused
me to reflect in on my ownjourney.
And it was at 45, so the classicmidlife moment, shall we say.
And so I kind of dug myself outof that hole, and it was in
(03:24):
digging out of that, my role inthe military had always been as
an instructor, leadershipdevelopment, human resources
side of things as well.
So I kind of cobbled all theselife skills, qualifications, and
my newfound passion together,and now I essentially help
people who have reached a pointin their career where they're
(03:44):
traditionally financiallyfinancially secure,
professionally successful, butthey're also hitting that kind
of mid forties life period wherethe kids, you know, everything's
been about getting called,getting a good job, getting a
house, getting the family.
And suddenly the kids are off inBali, setting up a SAS company
or something.
And they still findingthemselves in there.
(04:05):
You've just turned 40 yourself.
And the finding that actually, Iremember joining the army at 16
and they talked about pensionsat 40.
And I was like, no one's thatold.
I'll never live to that age.
Well, so I completely understandthat people are getting to this
point in life and realizingthere's a whole load of living
left to do, and maybe theyhaven't got the skills, the
(04:27):
network, the, the, thebackground experience.
to see what a life beyondtraditional success looks like.
So I kind of coach them, helpthem to go towards purpose,
beyond success to purpose, tofulfillment, creating a legacy,
that, that kind of thing.
So that's my, that's my, I'velived that journey and I've
(04:49):
managed to cobble it into aprofession.
That makes sense.
James (04:54):
Makes complete sense.
I was doing, I did a post theother day about how generally
after 30 and onwards, start torealize that you've probably
been following a lot of whatsociety's taught you.
So things like status, money,how we should live, and then you
(05:16):
suddenly hit mid thirties, earlyforties, late forties, and then
you realize that What youthought you wanted.
isn't actually what you trulywant, and what you truly want is
something completely different.
Stephen Hinds (05:34):
Let me modify that because I've got 18 years.
Of more time on the planetbecause you're not wrong, you're
not 100 percent right, becauseit's important that we
understand that all those thingsthat we did from our 20s and 30s
and into our 40s, they were theright thing to do at the right
time, you know, but what happensis we're allowed to evolve.
(05:59):
You know, so there's a, there'sa thing, I think it's Daniel
Levison, he writes a book aboutthe different ages of man,
meaning species, man, where, youknow, we have, we have certain
urges when we're, when we'reyounger, it's about partying and
sports and hanging out withguys, then hanging out with
girls and all that kind ofthing.
And we, we evolved through thatprocess.
(06:21):
So that we, we commit to, yes,you're absolutely right, what
societal norms say, what ourparents say, you know, and even,
even the culture when, when Iwas going through that lifestyle
in the 80s.
You know, it was nailed onbecause everything that we could
see was my father was in thesame industry for 40 years, and
(06:46):
he was normal.
That's what all of his friendsdid.
You know, so we could onlyreflect on what they were
living.
But the transformation in this,the, the the acceleration of
changes in technology andawareness, the Internet has
given us knowledge about therest of the world.
So the reason I make a big pointof this is.
(07:10):
We didn't fuck it up.
Excuse my French.
Yeah.
We did what was the right thingthen.
But now what I'm doing is I'msaying to people, you have
permission to find somethingelse.
You know, that was okay.
You got loads of skills there.
Maybe you made other people richin that time.
But no, it's all key for you toconsider doing something else,
(07:33):
doing something different.
It's not that if this is right,that must be wrong.
That was right at that time.
Well, no, this is right at thistime.
Does that make sense?
That little distinction?
James (07:46):
so it's more like the, our teens, twenties, maybe early
thirties, we're exploring who weare, but we're kind of, we're
partly programmed by society,but we're also exploring our
own, our own body, our own fun,and then we get to the point
(08:07):
into our late 30s, early 40s, westart to understand, I suppose
it's, you start to understandwho we truly are.
to connect to ourselves on adeeper, on a different level
than in our 20s.
Stephen Hinds (08:22):
Absolutely.
And this is what happens.
The, you must've heard thephrase.
We we have two lives and thesecond life begins when we
realize we have only one.
And this is a profound momentthat we tend to come to around
this area era in our life.
And everyone gets to this point.
And my, my, my advice is, thesooner you can get there, the
(08:44):
better because it encouragesthis kind of insight and
reflection, because in thoseearly days, it's, it's from a
survival perspective.
It's very important that wedon't stick out.
Literally, if you think about itin caveman days.
If you're twice as tall aseveryone else around you, the
(09:05):
saber toothed tiger is going togo, Oh, he looks tasty.
We'll have some of that.
You see what I mean?
So fitting in, fitting in isevolutionarily, if that's a
word, required.
So we, we do everything.
We want to have the samehairstyle, the same clothes.
We want to behave in the sameway.
So we have these stereotypesthat we try to model.
(09:25):
And what happens, andincidentally, that's where most
of our chronic stress, anxiety,depression bad habits comes
from, because we have thisexternal version of ourself, but
inside we've always got thisauthentic, original version of
ourselves.
And the further apart those twopersonas are, this is where all
(09:46):
the stress lies in this deltahere.
But as life goes on, We, we loseboth through evolutionary, but
just through the pain andstruggle.
And we just think, I'm done withthis.
I'm bored with trying to be likeeveryone else.
I don't want to be that guy.
And we, the closer and closer wecome to our authentic selves.
(10:07):
This is why as a demographic,people in their fifties and
sixties, notwithstanding illnessand bereavement and everything,
they're the happiest demographicon the planet because they, they
finally realized.
That no one cares what theywear, what they say, what they
do, and we become morecomfortable in our own skin and
(10:31):
more inclined to say, I'm notinterested in other people's
opinions.
And it truly is a liberatingexperience.
So it's the best time to bealive over 40.
James (10:43):
people, for the people listening, how can we step more
into our most authentic self?
Stephen Hinds (10:50):
Right.
So I, I, I run people throughmy, my clients start with what I
call a life audit, right?
There's two, two main phases tothis, but stage one is life
audit.
And that's where we just sitdown and it can be as simple as
a piece of paper or open up aspreadsheet and you can, you can
do it on a specific thing likemy job, you can do it on your
(11:12):
relationship.
Be careful where you do this.
Careful where you leave thesenotes lying around.
Yeah, right?
It's an intensely personalthing.
So you really need to gatherbecause you have to be 110
percent honest with yourself.
So, and then you just say,right, let's say I'm talking
about my job.
Lying down the centre.
(11:33):
What things in my job do I lookforward to?
What gives me joy?
What boosts my energy?
And that could be working in ateam challenges, learning new
things, can be whatever it is,responsibility.
And then on the other side, whatsteals my joy?
What takes my energy?
You know, filling in countlessforms, meeting after meeting,
(11:55):
travel, travel, business travelcould go on either side of the
list.
It depends on which one, whichone's you.
Some guys quite like to get awayfor a week to, on a business
trip.
However, my point is you justwrite this stuff down.
That in itself can be incrediblyenlightening and cathartic.
And then you get to look at yourjob.
(12:17):
Not in an emotional way, just infacts and figures.
You can almost give each pointscore.
And then by looking at this, youcan very quickly see if most of
your stuff's on the side ofGriffin with joy, no, no jobs or
any circumstances ever going tohave.
all on one side.
But you look at those two listsand you go, is that really worth
(12:40):
that?
And very quickly you can get akind of graphical or pictorial
representation of where you'reat.
And it's very rare that thatdoesn't align with What you're
feeling anyway, whetherconsciously, or if you're
feeling, if you're feelingpissed off or stressed or just
generally grumpy or unhappy,this list will probably align
(13:02):
with, well that makes sense,doesn't it?
I've got five things there, 25things on that side.
That can then be the catalyst tosay, I need to make a change.
So that's what I call the lifeaudit format.
Where am I at right now?
What's going on in my life?
Yeah, so that's step number one,just to get clarity.
(13:24):
Then once they go, okay, I wantto do something about this.
Say, all right, then here we go.
And the next thing we call isthat these are, these are my own
names too.
We'll call it the hero'sjourney.
So let's take yourself as anexample, James, you're 40 years
old.
You split your life.
To this point down into fivechapters, 0 to 8, 8 to 16, 16 to
(13:46):
24.
And again, this, this isn't doneimmediately.
You go away and you make somenotes and maybe take you a few
days or a week to, to completethis exercise.
So you write the things in eachchapter that, as you can
remember, it doesn't have to beaccurate, whether you are seven
or nine, but it puts it in theright ballpark.
And you write the things thatyou remember that were good, the
(14:08):
things that were bad, the thingsthat you, you're glad you did,
the things that you wish you didbut didn't.
Things that you did but wish youdidn't, you know, these kind of
things and you do it again andagain for each Chapter of your
life to this point and thenagain you do an audit of that
information and you have a lookand say well Quite like that.
(14:30):
This this is very important whenwe come to this second life
thing is I really loved thatbetween 8 and 16, you know, I
love playing soccer, I loveplaying trombone in the band or
something like that, that couldbe crucial in this next phase,
you know, but you take all thelearnings from that experience.
And then you sit down, andeither on your own or with
(14:52):
someone like me, is we sit downand we say, right, which bits of
Chapter 1 to 5 do you want touse?
Because you're the hero in thisjourney, and now we're going to
script Chapter 6.
So what do you want Chapter 6 tolook like?
You've got all this So let'slook to the future.
(15:17):
Let's plan your future so thatyou're, you've got a direction
to aim for, because once youknow which direction you're
going in, guess what?
You've got a much higherlikelihood of getting there.
James (15:30):
That's, that's part of the, the idea.
Once you know what you want youhave a direction, suddenly life,
I think life becomes, as for me,life for me has become easier,
because all then, then I have toput a plan together, and execute
the plan, slowly, step by step,bit by bit, I slowly step into
(15:55):
who I'm becoming.
Stephen Hinds (15:57):
Now, you are, shall we say, one of the
enlightened ones.
So you've already, you alreadyunderstand this on, on some
level, but there's many, manymen and women all across all
genders who are in your spaceright now, who haven't got the,
the the access to perhaps thiskind of level of reflection and
(16:19):
in depth, but, but that doesn'tmean they won't feel it.
They will feel it emotionally.
They will feel it in forms ofstress.
Poor sleep, poor diet, you knowtension in relationships and all
that kind of thing.
And when you don't have adirection, it also triggers not
having a sense of control.
So that can trigger anxiety juston its own, having lack of
(16:42):
control.
So you having a plan, there'snothing to say two things.
There's nothing to say you willachieve it.
And there's nothing to say thatin three years time you won't
say, actually.
I want to go this way.
So there's no rules to this, butit is clear.
It is important that you have aclarity and you have a purpose
(17:02):
to aim at.
Yeah.
Because you said it makes lifefeel easier.
I would modify that and say itmakes doing this, the hard stuff
easier because you understand,yeah, this is pretty tough
today.
I'm going to the gym today.
I hate the gym, but Hey, if Iwant to go hiking in the
(17:24):
Himalayas when I'm 55, I need tolook after my body.
Now it becomes easier to go tothe gym.
But if I tell you, you just goto the gym, why?
Well, because I told you to.
How much harder is that tomotivate yourself to go to the
gym?
You see what I mean?
So that's the, that's thepurpose.
Doesn't make things easy, itmakes hard things easier to
(17:46):
endure.
James (17:48):
Yeah, I can, I can see that because at the moment I've
had back issues probably for thelast three or four years
Stephen Hinds (17:56):
Mm hmm.
James (17:57):
for the first time I've had a lady which tell me the
reason I got a back pain isbecause my feet are splaying
out, I've got a pronated foot somy foot dips down, my shoulders
are slightly to one side, sothis gives me, it gives me a
idea of what I need to change.
(18:17):
In order to make myself morebalanced so that I don't have
that same back pain for the next30, 40 years.
Touch wood if I live that long.
Stephen Hinds (18:28):
Yeah, so you've got an external expert to come
in and look at you.
Yeah.
Cause here's the other thing,right?
Youth.
I'm full of cliches.
Me, right?
Youth is wasted on the young,right?
So when you had no idea howimportant it was and you had no
idea what you were capable of,you were gifted with this.
young, energetic, elastic bodyof yours that you could fill
(18:52):
full of pizza and lager and, youknow, deprive of sleep and you
could do all of these things toit and it would just suck it up
and it gives us, gives us thisfeeling of immortality and
invincibility.
Well, that's another part ofthis realization.
Generally, you learn it when youget, when you go out on a Friday
night and get drunk and it takesyou till Tuesday to get over the
(19:14):
hangover.
You know?
There's a, there's a balancewhere you realize that that fun
that I had on Friday night isn'tworth the Saturday, Sunday,
Monday horrible feeling.
So these, these are all part ofthese slow changes and it's
important that people understandthat they're not different,
they're not broken, they're notweak.
It's just ages of man thatpeople go through.
(19:36):
And I, I loved my youth.
I loved being who I was then.
I loved being in the army.
I loved going skiing.
I loved my beer.
I loved chatting up the girls.
And I'm happy with that, but Idon't regret that it's over.
Because I love not drinkingbeer.
I love being with the one womanwho's my soulmate.
You know, I love going for walkswith my dogs.
(20:00):
You know, so I, I love my lifetoday as much as I love my life
then, you see, it's importantthat we understand we move
through these ages and it'sperfectly normal.
It doesn't mean that your bestdays are behind you.
It's actually, I, I would argueit's the other way around.
If you keep yourself mind andbody fit.
(20:21):
You can have just as much fun inyour 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond
because you've got the wisdom.
Get the wisdom, you've generallygot the disposable income,
you've got new technologies.
So life ain't over after 40.
Trust me on this.
James (20:40):
I can kind of falch because I dance.
One thing I love to do isdancing and see me in a dance
floor, I dance like nobody'swatching.
I'm one of them.
As soon as I get into dancefloor and music hits, I'm just,
I just go, I'm like a racehorseI have that much energy and it's
(21:01):
just because dancing's one thingI have found over the last three
years that I just love to do,and that's the key.
It's finding what you love todo.
And that's, that again, findingwhat you love to do, that's a,
that's a journey of exploringdifferent things as well.
But once you do, will, you willmove your day around.
(21:22):
You will, you will, you will goto these events rather than go
to see family.
Because you know, these thingsbring you joy.
Stephen Hinds (21:31):
Good words, let's put a pin in that, bring you
joy, to give you a feeling ofelation.
Yeah, they're releasingendorphins and all this.
Now, you, you lead me on to apoint, a big, a big thing I make
is a difference, a distinctionbetween two words, vulnerability
and weakness.
(21:52):
Vulnerability is where you arecomfortable in your own skin and
you don't mind people knowingabout it.
So for instance, you're, you'reactually being vulnerable on the
dance floor.
You're opening yourself up forcriticism from others, right?
That's vulnerable.
It doesn't mean you're weak.
I would argue it's a strength.
(22:13):
It's a character strength to beso comfortable enough for you to
go on that dance floor andbehave like an idiot.
And not care, see what I mean?
Or be perceived by other peopleto be behaving like an idiot
because of those societal normsand these, these boundaries we
put on ourselves.
And I would transpose that in mybusiness coaching world into a
(22:34):
leader or a CEO or something.
Going into a meeting and beingcomfortable not being the
smartest guy in the room andaccepting that you would have to
ask for advice from otherpeople.
That's some, some leaders, manyleaders see that as a weakness,
but it's actually an incrediblypowerful move to make in terms
(22:57):
of building trust, in terms ofbuilding credibility, because no
one can possibly be all thingsto all men, you see, so you go
into the room and you say,Right, I'm not a specialist in
this area.
Tell me what you think aboutthis.
And you're giving the grouppermission to speak their mind.
(23:18):
But what you've shown them for ahuman level is yeah.
You're not faking it.
You're not pretending to beinvincible, you know, and I saw
it by leaders in the army.
I used it myself in the militaryas well.
You lean on your specialists andyou call them in and say, right,
you're the specialist in thisarea.
What would you advise me to do?
(23:40):
I haven't given up control.
I haven't given up command.
I've asked the specialist forhis opinion on something.
That's vulnerability in aleadership perspective.
But it's not weakness.
This is the key.
It's strength because thosepeople will respect you so much
more, providing you handle it inthe right way.
(24:00):
You know, you don't say, Oh,hell, I don't know.
I don't know.
You know, you say you're this,but you're my engineer.
This is an engineering task.
What is your opinion?
And they go, right, sir.
I think we should do this.
Thank you.
See that?
No loss of command and control,but I've shown vulnerability and
I've accepted that I'm not.
the smartest guy in the room.
(24:22):
So that's a, that's a powermove.
James (24:27):
So so how would you distinguish between a weakness
and what was the other word?
Sorry.
Stephen Hinds (24:36):
Vulnerability.
James (24:38):
Vulnerability.
How would you distinguishbetween a so for the people out
there who are listening now, howwould they distinguish between a
vulnerability and a weakness?
Stephen Hinds (24:48):
Well, this is the thing.
A weakness is something thatsociety or our own perceptions
places upon us.
You know, like you might, youmight be sat at the edge of the
dance floor, right?
And you see all these peoplemoving, you know, pulling some
proper moves, popping shapes orwhatever you called it in your
day, right?
Yeah.
(25:09):
And you think, oh, I can't dothat.
No, you'd love to dance, but youcan't dance, right?
And, and it's making youunhappy.
You've created that as aweakness, right?
So to flip that into avulnerability and a strength.
It's for you to say, I'm not asgood as them, but I don't care
(25:32):
because I'm just going to go andenjoy it, right?
So you've got all those people.
This, this is a preconception wehave.
We, we, we assume that we willbe judged by others.
That's the fear that peoplehave, right?
Being judged.
The bad news is you will alwaysbe judged.
Everyone's judging everyoneevery time.
(25:54):
Yeah.
It's human nature.
We're constantly gauging.
Is this guy a friend or foe?
Is this a threat and all thatkind of stuff.
So we're doing it.
We can't turn it off.
Right?
So vulnerability is aboutsaying, well, if they're going
to judge me, they can judge mefor who I actually am.
Right?
So you go on the dance floor,right?
And you've got all theseprofessionals.
(26:15):
And you're strutting about likeyou've, I don't know, you've got
ants in your pants or somethinglike that, right?
Weaknesses, a weakness mindsetwill tell you that you can't
enjoy the dancing becausethey're all laughing at you.
But two things are true.
If they laugh at you, that showsa weakness in their character,
(26:36):
right?
But if they step in and help youand give you some advice, so,
you know, or they just let yoube you and they're happy for
you, then that's good character.
That's good people, right?
So they, they're, they're notjudging you.
They're, they're accepting youfor who you are and those are
your tribe.
Those are the people you want tohang out with, So that's, that
(26:57):
would be a weakness.
And if you, if you feel aweakness and you feel anything
professionally or personallythat you cannot.
You cannot express yourself in away for fear of what other
people think, then that's aweakness.
Right.
A vulnerability is knowing thatyou're not the best dancer in
the room, right?
(27:19):
Because then you can dosomething about that.
And there's a fundamentaldifference here.
I'll explain the difference.
Vulnerability is knowing you'renot the best dancer in the room.
That allows you to go to a gooddancer and say, I'm not a good
dancer.
You are.
Show me how to dance.
That's a power move.
You've identified there's adelta in your skills or your
(27:41):
abilities.
And you're taking steps toaddress it.
Because that good dancer canremember when he couldn't dance,
she couldn't dance.
And they will willingly help yougo there.
That's showing vulnerability.
Vulnerability is the deltabetween where I am now and what
I want to be.
Weakness is when you see that,or you perceive that, you do
nothing about it, and it causesyou not to be that person.
(28:05):
Right?
So that's That's my definitionof weakness.
Weakness is bad.
Vulnerability, good.
James (28:14):
so really, you could turn anything a weakness or a
vulnerability.
So I'll give you an example, forexample, you had self doubt.
You would naturally see selfdoubt as probably a weakness
because you're doubting yourselftoo much, then at the same time
you could turn self doubt, okay,I might doubt myself in this
(28:35):
ability, who can I turn to toget some advice and some help
from?
Would that be right?
Stephen Hinds (28:41):
Precisely.
So self doubt keeps you small.
That's a weakness, right?
And you do nothing about it.
You just accept you're locked.
Self doubt as a vulnerabilitydoes two things.
It keeps you honest.
It stops you getting arrogant,but it's a start point for
growth.
(29:02):
So you accept I'm not as good aswe keep going back to dancing,
but you know, I would like totalk more about leadership or
something in a business context,but we'll stick with dancing
because you love it.
That's good.
Okay.
So, you think you take thatvulnerability shows great
awareness, right?
Shows that I know I'm not a gooddancer, but it gives you a start
(29:22):
point to say, right, what am Igoing to do about that?
So it's a start point forgrowth.
Right.
And, and people talk aboutimposter syndrome and imposter
syndrome is a valid experienceproviding we don't let it take
charge because it means thatyou're stepping up to a
different level.
(29:43):
So it's, it's a, it's anindicator of growth, providing
you manage it.
All of these things.
need to be managed correctly.
They, you know, they can be goodfor you.
They can be bad for you.
All depends on how you handlethem.
So someone who's got no impostersyndrome, beware, right?
(30:03):
They're, they're a verydangerous person or a very
stupid person.
If, if you know, the specialforces, military special forces
will tell you anybody thatdoesn't feel fear is a
psychopath.
You know, because courage isabout feeling fear, then doing
it.
But they don't want to work withpeople that don't feel fear
because those are, you know handgrenades, you know, they're,
(30:26):
they're wildcards.
That makes sense.
James (30:29):
That makes sense.
That makes a lot of sense.
So self doubt obviously keeps usin negative thinking patterns.
kind of strategies can peoplestart to incorporate in order to
turn self doubt into a growthexperience?
Stephen Hinds (30:46):
Really simple routine to go through.
First of all, just pause and askyourself a simple question is,
is what I'm telling myself true?
You know, is it true that I'mnot a good dancer?
I'm not the best dancer.
Yeah, that can be true.
Is it true that I'll never beable to dance like that?
(31:09):
You know, is it true thatthey're all laughing at me?
Really?
Are they really laughing at me?
Look at them, you know, and you,you you question your, this
inner critic, this, cause that,that's what it comes from.
It comes to this inner voice.
in our head, which is developed,is developed to keep us safe
(31:30):
from an evolutionaryperspective.
Our bodies want us to live, eat,breathe, procreate, nothing
else.
Your physiology doesn't carewhether you have joy,
satisfaction, motivation, youknow, purpose, fulfillment.
Not interested.
It's about a survival of thespecies.
So we have all these systemsinside us that when you say,
(31:53):
Paragliding?
That sounds like a riot.
You know, every nerve and sinewin your body says, Shut up, you
fool.
We're not designed to fly.
You see what I mean?
So we have to overcome thoseinternal systems.
Yeah.
And sometimes those internalsystems get overdeveloped and
that's when we eitherindividually or with coaches we
(32:15):
can rewire them usingneuroplasticity.
James (32:19):
I thought, yeah.
So what other things couldpeople do really helps you find
of your clients?
Makes
Stephen Hinds (32:26):
So well, with my clients, it's great because we
can fast track through all ofthese things.
You know, you and I have beenchatting now for 35 minutes and
I'm dropping all these truthbombs and enlightenment and all
that.
We can read books, self helpbooks are good.
The problem with self help booksis they deal on a cognitive
intellectual level.
(32:47):
I'll give you an example, right?
Suppose you're overweight,right?
I'm going to write a book.
I'm going to say, if you'reoverweight, don't eat shit,
right?
Eat vegetables at a reasonabletime and do exercise.
Boom.
There you go.
10 million copies.
I'm a best time seller.
Everybody reads it and goes.
(33:07):
That makes perfect sense.
Don't eat shit and exercise.
Boom.
Why are we all not super leanathletes?
Because self help books deal onan intellectual conscious level.
Whereas alcohol, poor sleep,poor diet, addictions, they're
all happening in our emotionalcells.
(33:29):
They are tied back to childhoodtrauma or stories that we are
telling ourselves in our ownhead.
So the problem comes when it'sten o'clock at night on a
Saturday night and all yourmates are at the pub with their
girlfriends and you're homealone and it's just you and the
fridge and a sponge cake.
(33:51):
You tell me what self help bookyou're going to read that will
say that.
You see what I mean?
So this is where the coachingcomes in to go to that deeper
level because.
Overeating, undereating, alcoholabuse, anything like that are
outputs of an emotional needinside the body, and it
generally takes a coach to goand do the deep work and
(34:14):
understand the inputs to aim offso that you understand why
Saturday night in front of thefridge is triggering you to want
to eat cake.
Does that make sense?
I keep answering that, but
James (34:27):
Or, or, it, you, almost flushed upon you.
So, I'll give you an example.
I mentioned beforehand that Ihad a tooth out.
Now, I've had three teeth out atthe moment.
good, because I always used tolove eating fruit.
But also, I've got a sweettooth.
I'm almost, I've got this ideain my head, that I don't want to
(34:49):
end up in my fifties, with falseteeth like my nan.
So suddenly, that kind offeeling, it's like, no, okay, so
then it makes it easier.
So I've realized that puttingsugar out, I've got to do it.
I have to do it, otherwise I endup with false teeth.
Stephen Hinds (35:07):
Now that's, that's a, that is one method to
do it.
Okay.
I would counter that with you'rein constant denial.
You've got to be constantlyvigilant.
You'll eventually have a thingcalled decision fatigue where it
will be 10 o'clock on a Saturdaynight and something else will
(35:27):
have happened in your lifebecause think, listen to me
describe this and see if yourecognize it.
As events are happening in yourlife and emotions are being felt
in your body.
You're just writing out a listof, I shouldn't eat sugar,
however, you know, football teamjust got beat, it's Saturday
night, come on, everybody'sentitled to have a little bit of
a good time.
(35:48):
It's only going to be one bag ofharibo.
It's alright, I'll go to the gymand do an extra half.
Are you hearing this?
yeah, this, this is your bodyand your mind convincing you
because they know the Haribo isin the fridge, you see?
So, that's you got, that's you,you've got to be vigilant
against that and that's why somany people fail.
(36:09):
However, if you understand thesystems involved, that it's
carbs that you're craving.
And if you can set up in aroutine where you're getting
more protein into your body atthe right times and you
anticipate that Friday nightsare your absolute kryptonite,
you know, when you're satwatching your favorite TV show
(36:30):
and you're comfy after a hardweek's work and you know that
time is when the carb attack isgoing to come because it's
carbs.
It's not sugar.
It's not horrible.
So you can prep and prime yourbody to have enough protein in
it, which subdues that craving.
And then suddenly, you're sat infront of the telly and your
(36:50):
partner will say, Do you wantsome haribo?
And you will naturally go no.
It's okay.
You see?
Now, what's the smarter, mostlikely to be continued version?
Preparation or denial?
You see what I mean?
James (37:08):
If you become more conscious, it'll be preparation.
But I always, there's alwaysgoing to be times where it's
just going to get you somepoint.
Stephen Hinds (37:18):
This is my point.
If you're prepared and you getinto habits and routines.
Guess what you get?
You get the chance to sayactually it's Friday night, I'm
going to have some Haribo.
But here's a question that Ialways ask people.
People, I've helped people stopsmoking, stop drinking, stop
various different things, right?
(37:39):
All you have to do is askyourself at the time of
choosing, am I choosing thisbecause I want it or because I
need it?
And if, even if you need it,that's cool because then what I
say is, okay, you need it, fairenough, you've lost this battle,
but let's see if we can winsomething back.
(38:00):
I need it, I'm going to havesome Haribo, I'm going to have a
beer, right, but it's quarterpast nine, I'm going to have it
at 9.
30.
So you're not doing the blanketdenial, which will crush you
because you'll spend your wholenight saying beer, beer, got to
have a beer, need a beer, need abeer.
Yeah.
No, you take control of yourmind and your body in the
(38:22):
situation.
And you say, I'm going to have abeer at 930.
930 comes and you go, I'm goingto have to have a beer.
Good.
Celebrate it because you neededa quarter past and you didn't
have it until half past.
Subtle changes, but it keeps youin control, right?
Then you accept, yeah, I felloff the wagon.
(38:44):
Next day you wake up, no guilt,no shame.
You just do an after actionreview, as we call it in the
military, say, right, let's makesure this doesn't happen again.
That's how it works.
That's, that's the.
Secret to long term habit forme.
James (39:04):
So can you go into a little bit more detail with
that?
Because I know from Shaw thathabits is the key.
So a great example is my habit Ido before I go shopping is I'll
have food.
So when I'm in the shop, I'mless likely to shove loads of
crap into my trolley.
Or another one might be havingegg with avocado for breakfast
(39:28):
because I know that fills me upand I'm less likely to snack.
How, how do you help clients tobuild new habits?
Stephen Hinds (39:36):
right.
So I use a thing from Dr.
Ben Hardy and it's called the,the, the future self and your
future self can be you tonight,you next week, you next month,
next year, 10 years time,whatever it is.
Right.
So it all starts with beingconscious.
And taking control of thesituation and let's use your
(39:58):
example of the shopping thing,right?
You've projected into the futurein two hours time I'm going to
be in Asda, Tesco, whatever,right?
And I know that those aisles aredesigned specifically to catch
my eyes with all the chocolateand sweets and everything like
that.
That's their job.
(40:19):
That's why they make billions ofpounds a year.
By catching poor, you know,unsuspecting idiots like us with
all the shiny wrappers and thediscounts and all that.
So that's your future version ofyourself.
James, James at five o'clock isgoing to be in is going to be in
Tesco.
Let's prepare for that.
Let's visualize that.
Right.
(40:39):
What can I do?
I know what I can do.
I can eat some protein.
I can get something in my bodythat's going to curb that.
Primeval response to try and getcarbs when I'm surrounded by
carbs.
So that's how you do it.
You look to the future versionyourself And you kind of ask
them, what would that version ofJames want me to do?
(41:00):
So, James, your 50 year oldJames, or your Saturday
afternoon James, both want younot to put sweets in your
trolley.
So, what would their advicewould be?
Go and have a banana right now,or go and have something.
Protein shake or something likethat.
So that when you are in that,when you're in that threat zone,
(41:21):
shall we say that you've gotyour best armed for, for that
experience
James (41:28):
That makes sense.
So it's like visualisation,visualising yourself
Stephen Hinds (41:32):
your future self.
James (41:33):
10, yourself 10, 15 years time and really allowing
yourself to feel into it.
Stephen Hinds (41:40):
Yeah.
Make, make them your new bestfriend, right?
So instead of this inner voicethat you have now saying, go on,
get the sweets, get the cake.
You can actually train using, Ihave a six week coaching
program, sorry to drop that inthere, where by doing
repetitions and visualizationsof these kind of things, we can
(42:00):
literally rewire your brain suchthat it would show up on an MRI
scan as being rewired.
Where you would have a differentexperience to what you've always
done all your life.
So even though you're 40 now,and you say, Oh, I'm just a
sugar man.
I'm a fiend for jelly babies.
We can change that in six weeksand make you think it's
(42:23):
ridiculous.
The idea even to drink, even toeat a jelly baby, you know, so
that that's all possible.
But you do that by visualizingyour future self and asking them
what they would want you to do.
Then you listen to that voice.
James (42:41):
Many men have grown up over the years with the idea
thinking feeling emotions isweak.
How can men overcome that beliefand how can they start to allow
themselves to feel what's goingon?
Say for example having a hardday.
(43:03):
But they can't, they're notallowed to feel that anger.
How would you suggest that theycan start to allow themselves to
feel that anger?
Stephen Hinds (43:11):
So, there's nothing in the human body, apart
from the earlobes and theappendix, that isn't there for a
reason.
Physical, mental, emotional,physiological.
They all have a purpose.
Okay?
And, we subdue anything at ourperil.
(43:32):
So if your body wants to sleepand you keep it awake, it will
bite you.
Yeah?
Same with anger, same withsorrow, same with any kind of
emotion, really.
It has to, it has to have anoutlet.
So let's take anger, forinstance.
If someone, if someone is livinga life as a painter and
(43:55):
decorator, Right.
Or they're working in thefactory or they're working in an
office or whatever.
And they're feeling so angrythat they feel like they have to
have a physical outburst.
Then that first of all tells methere's something in that
environment is not right.
And I would go back to my lifeaudit.
(44:16):
Things that give you joy, thingsthat take your joy.
Because it's not normal.
Left to its own devices, thehuman body will not be angry.
It's not a healthy condition tobe in.
It's not an efficient thing,condition to be in.
Okay, so there's something inthe environment that's causing
that emotion to happen.
And that's the first thingyou've got to look at, because
(44:37):
your body will not be denied.
It will come out somewhere.
It will either come out in abalanced safe way, or it will
appear somewhere, road rage,excess alcohol, fighting in the
pub.
Arguing with the wife or worse,that kind of thing, that energy
must come out.
Energy cannot be created ortaken away.
(44:59):
It's got to go to another place,right?
So, this is, this is why, pointnumber one, if you're feeling
unnatural emotions, often, moreoften than the circumstance
would apply, I mean, if you'rein a patrol base in Afghanistan,
and you're feeling daily angry,stressed, frightened, you know,
(45:20):
upset, then that's fine becausethe environment matches the
emotion.
But if you're living youraverage working day and you're
feeling extreme emotions,something's out of the line.
Remember, go back to our twoexternal personas, our internal
persona.
The further apart they are, themore inclined we are for stress
and stuff like that.
So that said, when we do feelemotions, we should feel
(45:43):
emotions.
We should let them happen.
You know, big boys don't cry andall that rubbish, right?
Trust me.
I have been in three war zones.
I have seen some of the biggest,scariest human beings, right?
Whose tattoos have got tattoos.
Right?
And I have seen them sob likebabies.
(46:04):
And I don't remember any of theother heroes around them
thinking any less of them forit.
Because it was, it's a naturalresponse.
It's often a mark of respect,it's grief, it's a mark of love
for other people, that kind ofthing.
And the right people in yourright tribe around you will not
(46:24):
judge you.
It goes back to this weakness,vulnerability piece, yeah?
If you've got a problem with aman crying, It's your problem.
It's not his problem.
He's showing vulnerability.
You're showing weakness.
So, but at the same time, youdon't want to be in the middle
(46:46):
of a boardroom, just solvingyour heart out, you know?
So again, it's about awareness.
It's about catching itbeforehand, anticipating I'm
going to, supposing your dogsjust died, right?
I don't make that flippantlybecause I, I've rescued 1500
dogs and dogs are, you know, themore people I meet, the more I
love dogs.
That's how my life is.
(47:07):
So if one of my dogs has beenill or injured or died recently
and I'm going into a boardroommeeting, I'm aware of that.
And I might say to people, Heyfolks, just to make you aware,
we had a situation this morning.
One of our dogs passed away.
I'm here.
I'm, you know, I'm going to dothe best I can.
(47:28):
But, you know, you know, atleast you understand the
background and then someone willsay something that will trigger
an emotion and yeah, you mightget a bit of a tear in your eye
and a bit of a sob, you know,that's understandable and I've
preempted it and I'm showing abit of vulnerability.
What I wouldn't do is.
(47:48):
Throw myself on the floor andsay, oh, poor Rusty he's my
favorite dog.
You know, and, you know, thatwould be inappropriate'cause
there's no need for that kind ofbehavior.
But the, the visceral feeling ofemotions is utterly allowed and
important that we allow it out,you know?
So if, if you don't want to doit publicly, go and take
(48:09):
yourself into a private space.
Go for a walk and go and sobyour heart out.
But do not try and keep a lid onit.
Okay.
James (48:20):
Yeah, sounds, it sounds good because I know from my own
experiences that I've had issueswith pent up anger and I used
to, until I became aware of it,used to go out drinking and
that's how my anger wouldrelease because when I'm sober I
would push it down.
But when I drank, there was thisidea that suddenly it would come
(48:44):
out with a vengeance.
But, obviously becoming aware ofthat I was able to find more
healthier ways such as, I canfocus anger when I do exercise,
I can shout into a pillow whenI'm by myself, other, other ways
like that.
Stephen Hinds (49:03):
So those are outputs and that's fine and it's
great that you've, you'veunderstood that.
But so many people are livingthat right now in the twenties,
thirties, forties.
And it's, that's the importantthing.
That's what's causing our theexplosion and mental health
issues, right?
Because Never, never before hasit been so apparent to us what
(49:24):
perfection looks like.
Every Instagram post we see,every advertising, every, every
Netflix movie we see, we seethis fallacy of perfectionism.
And consciously orsubconsciously, we have been
primed that we're not goodenough.
And that, you know, if we onlybuy that soap or we only wear
(49:46):
those clothes, we'll, we'll bejust that little bit better.
The whole industrial complex,media complex is geared against
us.
The news is geared against us,right?
The news is just four minutes ofdepressing noise between
advertising revenue.
That's all it is.
(50:07):
It's, it's tapping into ourevolutionary need to understand
the fear and the threat.
So they tell us really bad newsfor four minutes.
And you know, it's just at theend of the four minutes to say,
but that's not all.
Something terrible has happenedas well.
We'll tell you that after thebreak.
Watch all these adverbs on Shitethat you don't need but your
(50:30):
brain's there tuned like, oh mygod, what happened?
What happened in that weevillage in some place in Africa
that I can't even pronounce?
I need to know.
You know, we have all thesesystems in our bodies and that
can trigger depression, anxiety,anger, all of these kind of
things.
So it's important that we manageour environment, but if we're
(50:52):
feeling these things too often,then that's when we need to talk
to someone else.
It could be a friend but ideallya coach, this is why we do what
we do because we can identifyit.
This is so important becausethis, this is a why I do my job
and one of my biggestfrustrations in my job.
I deal with people in thethirties, forties, fifties,
(51:14):
sixties, right?
And I give them insights andthis isn't just me.
This isn't a pitch because mostcoaches, any good coach can do
this.
I give them insights intothings.
I take them back to places wheresay, well, that was the incident
that caused this.
And this, this pattern isrepeating throughout your life.
And they say, my God, I've, I'vecarried this with me for
(51:35):
decades.
I've always thought I wasn'tgood enough.
I've always been this person.
And I just give them insights.
And every day, this is mypassion, my joy in this job.
Every day I get messages on myphone saying, Oh my God, I've
had this insight of thisbreakthrough.
You've changed my life.
You've saved my life.
(51:56):
You know, because we carry this,the voices, the stories that we
tell ourselves in our head.
If they're the things that arecausing these problems, then you
need to talk to someone who canjust talk you through them.
So just saying things out loudcan be all it takes to cause
(52:18):
that bubble to burst and you go,my God, there is hope.
I'm not broken, you know, soanyone who's suffering anger,
depression, anxiety, doing,doing harm to themselves or
others, it's not normal.
It is not normal.
There is an underlying problemthat must be addressed because
(52:39):
it will not go away on its own.
It's another key factor as well.
James (52:44):
So what are some key daily practices people can do in
order to start to uncover someof these stories that we're
telling ourselves with ourmental health.
Yeah,
Stephen Hinds (53:01):
So if you're feeling unhappy, if you, if you
think the whole world's comingat you, I promise you it's not.
We've never been safer,healthier, luckier, richer than
we are today.
All right.
The media doesn't want you toknow that.
But again, I've been in threewars.
I've seen every culture.
I've been all around the world.
I promise you the human animalis fundamentally kind and
(53:24):
community focused.
Right.
And if anyone disagrees withthis, I'll ask you to do this
simple exercise, compare theamount of evil people, evil, bad
people that you have actuallymet.
Eyeball to eyeball in your life,not read about, heard about, had
(53:47):
an entire nation or creed orwhatever be described to you.
Actually met in your life andcompare it to the number of good
people or at least neutralpeople that you've met in the
last week.
And that list will be infinitelylarger than that list of evil
(54:07):
people for your entire life.
So that's just basic maths.
The world is not as bad as themedia and the politicians will
wish that.
So getting into that mindset.
Now, I actually have a five daycourse on, on I'll give you the
link.
You can drop it in there on it'sfree.
It's on YouTube.
I call it my five day challengeand it's a challenge to change
(54:30):
your mindset about you and aboutthe world.
And one of those things in thereis an exercise called the CIA
model control influence exceptwe've only got 100 percent of
energy that we can give out inthe day, right?
It's how we're designed.
So when we, when we define ourday in those three categories.
We can allocate energyaccordingly.
(54:51):
Things I can control, things Ican do, say, think, not do, not
say, not think, influence mypartner, my family, my
colleagues, my immediatevicinity.
I can influence them.
I can ask them to do stuff.
I can hope they will do things.
Everything else falls into theaccept or ignore category.
(55:12):
Right, so the, the Ukraine war,the climate, the hurricanes that
are happening, the typhoons thatare happening.
If you're sat in Wrexham orBarnsley, And it's a Monday
morning, right?
It's okay to be aware of thosethings.
It's okay as a human to havecompassion for people who are
suffering.
(55:32):
But if you're not sleepingbecause of the typhoons in
Senegal, if that's evenpossible, then you're burning
energy from your finite battery,you're burning energy and stuff
that you cannot influence orcontrol, guess where that
balance gets taken from?
(55:52):
From the areas that you cancontrol, the areas you can
influence.
So if you're not turning up foryourself or you're not turning
up for your family or your jobbecause you're burning energy
over here on things that are waybeyond your control, then that's
an awareness that you canadjust.
And say, I'm not going to, I'mnot going to give energy to that
(56:14):
because I can't change it, youknow, so that's the CIA model.
Gratitude's another one.
We, we need three positives inour life to counter one negative
because all of the people in thecaves when we were cavemen who
heard the strange noise andwent, Oh, I wonder what that is.
They all got eaten by thestrange noise, right?
(56:35):
So we learn to be cautious.
We learn to err on the side ofsafety and be negative.
Right.
So all the ones that survived inthe caves were the ones that
were saying, no, I don't want togo there.
That sounds scary.
You know, that was anevolutionary thing.
So we are tuned to the negative.
That's why the media always gaveus negative stuff.
Can you imagine if Sky News comeon and said, Hey, everything's
(56:57):
fabulous.
Honestly, the world's goinggreat.
We don't go.
Oh, I wasn't expecting that.
Fair enough.
Switch off the news.
That doesn't work.
They need to sell advertisingrevenue.
So they need to say, right, thewhole world's great, but seeing
this tiny little corner here,there's some shit going down.
And we're going to send all thereporters there and we're going
(57:17):
to cover it for the next fivedays.
Well, our brains suck that inand say, my God, the world must
be a terrible place.
Look, those people in, you know,butt fuck nowhere in Louisiana
are still got no home.
That's 8 billion people and wefound 20 of them are having a
bad day.
You see how our minds can befocused in on the negativity so
(57:39):
we can understand that we cancontrol that and we can say,
right, let's think of threethings that I'm grateful for.
I'm grateful for my wife.
I'm grateful for my daughter.
I'm grateful for my health.
I'm grateful for my dogs, youknow, and I consciously pump
these positive things into mybrain to override the default
negativity.
(58:00):
So gratitude is another one.
Got time for one more?
James (58:06):
yeah, yeah.
Stephen Hinds (58:07):
Right.
Our emotional body It's muchmore powerful than our conscious
brain.
Conscious thinking is late tothe party and it's, it's the,
it's the weakest part of us.
Our emotions will alwaysovercome our thoughts, all
right?
Except when we use breathing,right?
(58:27):
So, all of our senses, hearing,seeing, touching, tasting, all,
all these things, all they are,are interfaces to get knowledge
to the brain, so the brain candecide.
Are we fighting tigers, or arewe resting, are we digesting,
sleeping?
That's the binary decision thatyour brain makes.
So it's taking all of this inputin.
(58:49):
Sky News is coming in,Facebook's coming in, and all
that kind of thing.
And it's telling our nervoussystem, holy moly.
Never seen so many saber toothedtigers, you know, we've got to
pump our bodies full of cortisoland adrenaline.
We've got to be on edge.
We've got to be ready for thefight at any second.
That's what, that's whatFacebook and Sky News is making
our bodies do.
(59:10):
Now, we can't control our bloodpressure.
We can't control this noisethat's coming at us.
We can, we can switch it off.
But the thing that we cancontrol is our breathing and
there's a thing called heartrate variability.
The brain listens to the heart.
There's, there's neurons aroundthe heart, which send signals to
the brain.
(59:31):
And it's the.
It's the variability of theelectrical signals between our
heartbeats that tell the brainwhether we are preparing to
fight Tiger or not.
So, by, if you're stressed, thisis something that fighter pilots
use incidentally, right?
Most extreme physical duress,mental pressure that people are
under.
(59:52):
By, it's a very simple acronym,it's BREATHE.
Breathe regularly, evenly, andthrough the heart.
And if you can just take aminute or two to sit with your
eyes closed somewhere.
And just make your breathingeven, so no sharp sawtooth
breaths.
Not like this, just gentlenatural breaths, but make it as
(01:00:15):
smooth as you can.
What you'll do is you'll, you'llsmooth out your heart rate.
It'll slow down, but it doesn'thave to be super slow.
But what you're doing is you'remaking the electrical signals
between the beats.
Stable.
Those electrical signals aroundthe heart send to the brain to
say all must be well with theworld.
(01:00:37):
So it triggers what's calledyour parasympathetic nervous
system that says calm, rest,relax the muscles, lower stress
levels, everything like that.
So by using your breathingalone, that's the only method or
the main method that I know of.
But we can impact our physiologydirectly.
(01:00:58):
You can't, you can't increaseyour blood pressure.
You can't make yourself warmeror colder without clothes, but
your breath can talk thelanguage that your brain
understands to understand fight,flight, or rest and digest.
So those are, those are three,three critical areas that, that
you today can take charge ofyour mind and your body and your
(01:01:21):
stress levels.
James (01:01:24):
Thank you very much, Stephan.
Just quickly, can you just tellus what you do and how people
can get in contact?
Stephen Hinds (01:01:30):
You'll find me on LinkedIn Stephen Hines, MBA.
I'm I offer help to people whoare already successful and
independent and realizing that,as we said, they're coming to
the end of the first age of man.
And now they're wondering, howare they going to get out into
the second age?
Or they may not be aware that'sthe point that they're at and
they're feeling this delta wherethey're, they're trying to be
(01:01:53):
this guy in the office or thislady in the office.
but their internal inner self iskicking and screaming.
Those people want to talk to me.
They can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm on Facebook.
And what I offer is a 15 minutecall just to say, hi, how are
you?
Who are you?
And then I, I also have my fiveday challenge, which is free to
(01:02:13):
people.
I understand that some peopledon't want to work with a coach.
They're not ready to bevulnerable or not.
Maybe they just don't have thefinances.
Well, those five day, that fiveday challenge can be found on
YouTube.
It could also be find myLinkedIn thing my LinkedIn
channel, but when we have a 15minute call, what I will
probably set up providingeverything aligns.
(01:02:35):
is we'll go through a one hourcoaching session after that,
where we'll say, this is what itfeels like to be coached by me.
And then at the end of thathour, generally people have
massive, massive breakthroughsand insights.
Very often you'll see grown mencry because I've finally given
them permission for it tohappen.
But it's just a release of allthis pent up energy.
(01:02:56):
Then after that, we can say,right, let's look at my six week
program, my three month program,that kind of thing.
You know?
So, there you go.
James (01:03:06):
Thank you very much.
Stephen Hinds (01:03:08):
You're welcome.
This week's episode, we talkabout why vulnerability is a
(00:03):
strength rather than a weakness,particularly in leadership and
personal growth.
We look at the power of buildinggreat habits and how this can be
strengthened with a future selfvisualization.
How self doubt can be a growthopportunity if approached with
awareness and the right mindset.
And we talk about dailypractices for mindset and
(00:25):
wellbeing.
Welcome to Man (00:28):
A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men
navigate modern life, find theirtrue purpose, and redefine
manhood.
I'm your host, James, and eachweek, inspiring guests share
their journeys of overcomingfear Embracing vulnerability and
finding success.
(00:48):
From experts to everyday heroes.
Get practical advice andpowerful insights.
Struggling with career,relationships or personal
growth?
We've got you covered.
Join us on Man Quest to FindMeaning.
Now, let's dive in.
James (01:05):
Today I have my special guest, Stefan.
How you doing, Stefan?
Stephen Hinds (01:10):
Very well, thanks, James.
Thanks for having me.
James (01:13):
So, to start off, just tell us about yourself.
Can you tell us a bit aboutyourself, please?
Stephen Hinds (01:18):
Sure.
I'm Steph Steven.
I'm 58 years old, Scottish, incase you can't tell, but I live
in Germany.
I spent 29 years in the BritishArmy traveled all over the
world, served in Afghanistan,Iraq, things like that.
Married a German lady, and whenI retired from the army we
decided to stay here in Germany.
(01:39):
So I'm actually bi bilingual andalso binational, so I have a
German passport as well.
Thank you, Boris.
Thank you, Brexit.
So I, I now work as a coachthrough Primarily as a business
coach, I started as a languagecoach, business and language,
and then I moved into businesscoaching.
(02:01):
I've worked with corporationsbut my, I'll give you an example
of how I transitioned from beinga classic business coach into
being a kind of life coach forbusiness executives.
Was I could help them with theirbusiness strategy, but my, my
passion came alive when theystarted to tell me things that
were going on in their personallife with relationships, with
(02:23):
their children, with limitingbeliefs that they were having,
that kind of thing.
And because it resonated with mystory, when I left the army,
Joined the army at 16, left at45, suddenly realized that my
entire identity was built aroundmy career.
Because I was living, eating andbreathing that role.
(02:43):
And I went from high profile,high tempo position in
Afghanistan, came home andimmediately retired.
And then sat at home on my own,without responsibility, without
direction, without just everypart of my life had been changed
all in one fell swoop.
And that caused me toessentially have a breakdown.
(03:03):
And this is a very abridgedversion of the story.
But, you know, it was in myrecovery from that, that caused
me to reflect in on my ownjourney.
And it was at 45, so the classicmidlife moment, shall we say.
And so I kind of dug myself outof that hole, and it was in
(03:24):
digging out of that, my role inthe military had always been as
an instructor, leadershipdevelopment, human resources
side of things as well.
So I kind of cobbled all theselife skills, qualifications, and
my newfound passion together,and now I essentially help
people who have reached a pointin their career where they're
(03:44):
traditionally financiallyfinancially secure,
professionally successful, butthey're also hitting that kind
of mid forties life period wherethe kids, you know, everything's
been about getting called,getting a good job, getting a
house, getting the family.
And suddenly the kids are off inBali, setting up a SAS company
or something.
And they still findingthemselves in there.
(04:05):
You've just turned 40 yourself.
And the finding that actually, Iremember joining the army at 16
and they talked about pensionsat 40.
And I was like, no one's thatold.
I'll never live to that age.
Well, so I completely understandthat people are getting to this
point in life and realizingthere's a whole load of living
left to do, and maybe theyhaven't got the skills, the
(04:27):
network, the, the, thebackground experience.
to see what a life beyondtraditional success looks like.
So I kind of coach them, helpthem to go towards purpose,
beyond success to purpose, tofulfillment, creating a legacy,
that, that kind of thing.
So that's my, that's my, I'velived that journey and I've
(04:49):
managed to cobble it into aprofession.
That makes sense.
James (04:54):
Makes complete sense.
I was doing, I did a post theother day about how generally
after 30 and onwards, start torealize that you've probably
been following a lot of whatsociety's taught you.
So things like status, money,how we should live, and then you
(05:16):
suddenly hit mid thirties, earlyforties, late forties, and then
you realize that What youthought you wanted.
isn't actually what you trulywant, and what you truly want is
something completely different.
Stephen Hinds (05:34):
Let me modify that because I've got 18 years.
Of more time on the planetbecause you're not wrong, you're
not 100 percent right, becauseit's important that we
understand that all those thingsthat we did from our 20s and 30s
and into our 40s, they were theright thing to do at the right
time, you know, but what happensis we're allowed to evolve.
(05:59):
You know, so there's a, there'sa thing, I think it's Daniel
Levison, he writes a book aboutthe different ages of man,
meaning species, man, where, youknow, we have, we have certain
urges when we're, when we'reyounger, it's about partying and
sports and hanging out withguys, then hanging out with
girls and all that kind ofthing.
And we, we evolved through thatprocess.
(06:21):
So that we, we commit to, yes,you're absolutely right, what
societal norms say, what ourparents say, you know, and even,
even the culture when, when Iwas going through that lifestyle
in the 80s.
You know, it was nailed onbecause everything that we could
see was my father was in thesame industry for 40 years, and
(06:46):
he was normal.
That's what all of his friendsdid.
You know, so we could onlyreflect on what they were
living.
But the transformation in this,the, the the acceleration of
changes in technology andawareness, the Internet has
given us knowledge about therest of the world.
So the reason I make a big pointof this is.
(07:10):
We didn't fuck it up.
Excuse my French.
Yeah.
We did what was the right thingthen.
But now what I'm doing is I'msaying to people, you have
permission to find somethingelse.
You know, that was okay.
You got loads of skills there.
Maybe you made other people richin that time.
But no, it's all key for you toconsider doing something else,
(07:33):
doing something different.
It's not that if this is right,that must be wrong.
That was right at that time.
Well, no, this is right at thistime.
Does that make sense?
That little distinction?
James (07:46):
so it's more like the, our teens, twenties, maybe early
thirties, we're exploring who weare, but we're kind of, we're
partly programmed by society,but we're also exploring our
own, our own body, our own fun,and then we get to the point
(08:07):
into our late 30s, early 40s, westart to understand, I suppose
it's, you start to understandwho we truly are.
to connect to ourselves on adeeper, on a different level
than in our 20s.
Stephen Hinds (08:22):
Absolutely.
And this is what happens.
The, you must've heard thephrase.
We we have two lives and thesecond life begins when we
realize we have only one.
And this is a profound momentthat we tend to come to around
this area era in our life.
And everyone gets to this point.
And my, my, my advice is, thesooner you can get there, the
(08:44):
better because it encouragesthis kind of insight and
reflection, because in thoseearly days, it's, it's from a
survival perspective.
It's very important that wedon't stick out.
Literally, if you think about itin caveman days.
If you're twice as tall aseveryone else around you, the
(09:05):
saber toothed tiger is going togo, Oh, he looks tasty.
We'll have some of that.
You see what I mean?
So fitting in, fitting in isevolutionarily, if that's a
word, required.
So we, we do everything.
We want to have the samehairstyle, the same clothes.
We want to behave in the sameway.
So we have these stereotypesthat we try to model.
(09:25):
And what happens, andincidentally, that's where most
of our chronic stress, anxiety,depression bad habits comes
from, because we have thisexternal version of ourself, but
inside we've always got thisauthentic, original version of
ourselves.
And the further apart those twopersonas are, this is where all
(09:46):
the stress lies in this deltahere.
But as life goes on, We, we loseboth through evolutionary, but
just through the pain andstruggle.
And we just think, I'm done withthis.
I'm bored with trying to be likeeveryone else.
I don't want to be that guy.
And we, the closer and closer wecome to our authentic selves.
(10:07):
This is why as a demographic,people in their fifties and
sixties, notwithstanding illnessand bereavement and everything,
they're the happiest demographicon the planet because they, they
finally realized.
That no one cares what theywear, what they say, what they
do, and we become morecomfortable in our own skin and
(10:31):
more inclined to say, I'm notinterested in other people's
opinions.
And it truly is a liberatingexperience.
So it's the best time to bealive over 40.
James (10:43):
people, for the people listening, how can we step more
into our most authentic self?
Stephen Hinds (10:50):
Right.
So I, I, I run people throughmy, my clients start with what I
call a life audit, right?
There's two, two main phases tothis, but stage one is life
audit.
And that's where we just sitdown and it can be as simple as
a piece of paper or open up aspreadsheet and you can, you can
do it on a specific thing likemy job, you can do it on your
(11:12):
relationship.
Be careful where you do this.
Careful where you leave thesenotes lying around.
Yeah, right?
It's an intensely personalthing.
So you really need to gatherbecause you have to be 110
percent honest with yourself.
So, and then you just say,right, let's say I'm talking
about my job.
Lying down the centre.
(11:33):
What things in my job do I lookforward to?
What gives me joy?
What boosts my energy?
And that could be working in ateam challenges, learning new
things, can be whatever it is,responsibility.
And then on the other side, whatsteals my joy?
What takes my energy?
You know, filling in countlessforms, meeting after meeting,
(11:55):
travel, travel, business travelcould go on either side of the
list.
It depends on which one, whichone's you.
Some guys quite like to get awayfor a week to, on a business
trip.
However, my point is you justwrite this stuff down.
That in itself can be incrediblyenlightening and cathartic.
And then you get to look at yourjob.
(12:17):
Not in an emotional way, just infacts and figures.
You can almost give each pointscore.
And then by looking at this, youcan very quickly see if most of
your stuff's on the side ofGriffin with joy, no, no jobs or
any circumstances ever going tohave.
all on one side.
But you look at those two listsand you go, is that really worth
(12:40):
that?
And very quickly you can get akind of graphical or pictorial
representation of where you'reat.
And it's very rare that thatdoesn't align with What you're
feeling anyway, whetherconsciously, or if you're
feeling, if you're feelingpissed off or stressed or just
generally grumpy or unhappy,this list will probably align
(13:02):
with, well that makes sense,doesn't it?
I've got five things there, 25things on that side.
That can then be the catalyst tosay, I need to make a change.
So that's what I call the lifeaudit format.
Where am I at right now?
What's going on in my life?
Yeah, so that's step number one,just to get clarity.
(13:24):
Then once they go, okay, I wantto do something about this.
Say, all right, then here we go.
And the next thing we call isthat these are, these are my own
names too.
We'll call it the hero'sjourney.
So let's take yourself as anexample, James, you're 40 years
old.
You split your life.
To this point down into fivechapters, 0 to 8, 8 to 16, 16 to
(13:46):
24.
And again, this, this isn't doneimmediately.
You go away and you make somenotes and maybe take you a few
days or a week to, to completethis exercise.
So you write the things in eachchapter that, as you can
remember, it doesn't have to beaccurate, whether you are seven
or nine, but it puts it in theright ballpark.
And you write the things thatyou remember that were good, the
(14:08):
things that were bad, the thingsthat you, you're glad you did,
the things that you wish you didbut didn't.
Things that you did but wish youdidn't, you know, these kind of
things and you do it again andagain for each Chapter of your
life to this point and thenagain you do an audit of that
information and you have a lookand say well Quite like that.
(14:30):
This this is very important whenwe come to this second life
thing is I really loved thatbetween 8 and 16, you know, I
love playing soccer, I loveplaying trombone in the band or
something like that, that couldbe crucial in this next phase,
you know, but you take all thelearnings from that experience.
And then you sit down, andeither on your own or with
(14:52):
someone like me, is we sit downand we say, right, which bits of
Chapter 1 to 5 do you want touse?
Because you're the hero in thisjourney, and now we're going to
script Chapter 6.
So what do you want Chapter 6 tolook like?
You've got all this So let'slook to the future.
(15:17):
Let's plan your future so thatyou're, you've got a direction
to aim for, because once youknow which direction you're
going in, guess what?
You've got a much higherlikelihood of getting there.
James (15:30):
That's, that's part of the, the idea.
Once you know what you want youhave a direction, suddenly life,
I think life becomes, as for me,life for me has become easier,
because all then, then I have toput a plan together, and execute
the plan, slowly, step by step,bit by bit, I slowly step into
(15:55):
who I'm becoming.
Stephen Hinds (15:57):
Now, you are, shall we say, one of the
enlightened ones.
So you've already, you alreadyunderstand this on, on some
level, but there's many, manymen and women all across all
genders who are in your spaceright now, who haven't got the,
the the access to perhaps thiskind of level of reflection and
(16:19):
in depth, but, but that doesn'tmean they won't feel it.
They will feel it emotionally.
They will feel it in forms ofstress.
Poor sleep, poor diet, you knowtension in relationships and all
that kind of thing.
And when you don't have adirection, it also triggers not
having a sense of control.
So that can trigger anxiety juston its own, having lack of
(16:42):
control.
So you having a plan, there'snothing to say two things.
There's nothing to say you willachieve it.
And there's nothing to say thatin three years time you won't
say, actually.
I want to go this way.
So there's no rules to this, butit is clear.
It is important that you have aclarity and you have a purpose
(17:02):
to aim at.
Yeah.
Because you said it makes lifefeel easier.
I would modify that and say itmakes doing this, the hard stuff
easier because you understand,yeah, this is pretty tough
today.
I'm going to the gym today.
I hate the gym, but Hey, if Iwant to go hiking in the
(17:24):
Himalayas when I'm 55, I need tolook after my body.
Now it becomes easier to go tothe gym.
But if I tell you, you just goto the gym, why?
Well, because I told you to.
How much harder is that tomotivate yourself to go to the
gym?
You see what I mean?
So that's the, that's thepurpose.
Doesn't make things easy, itmakes hard things easier to
(17:46):
endure.
James (17:48):
Yeah, I can, I can see that because at the moment I've
had back issues probably for thelast three or four years
Stephen Hinds (17:56):
Mm hmm.
James (17:57):
for the first time I've had a lady which tell me the
reason I got a back pain isbecause my feet are splaying
out, I've got a pronated foot somy foot dips down, my shoulders
are slightly to one side, sothis gives me, it gives me a
idea of what I need to change.
(18:17):
In order to make myself morebalanced so that I don't have
that same back pain for the next30, 40 years.
Touch wood if I live that long.
Stephen Hinds (18:28):
Yeah, so you've got an external expert to come
in and look at you.
Yeah.
Cause here's the other thing,right?
Youth.
I'm full of cliches.
Me, right?
Youth is wasted on the young,right?
So when you had no idea howimportant it was and you had no
idea what you were capable of,you were gifted with this.
young, energetic, elastic bodyof yours that you could fill
(18:52):
full of pizza and lager and, youknow, deprive of sleep and you
could do all of these things toit and it would just suck it up
and it gives us, gives us thisfeeling of immortality and
invincibility.
Well, that's another part ofthis realization.
Generally, you learn it when youget, when you go out on a Friday
night and get drunk and it takesyou till Tuesday to get over the
(19:14):
hangover.
You know?
There's a, there's a balancewhere you realize that that fun
that I had on Friday night isn'tworth the Saturday, Sunday,
Monday horrible feeling.
So these, these are all part ofthese slow changes and it's
important that people understandthat they're not different,
they're not broken, they're notweak.
It's just ages of man thatpeople go through.
(19:36):
And I, I loved my youth.
I loved being who I was then.
I loved being in the army.
I loved going skiing.
I loved my beer.
I loved chatting up the girls.
And I'm happy with that, but Idon't regret that it's over.
Because I love not drinkingbeer.
I love being with the one womanwho's my soulmate.
You know, I love going for walkswith my dogs.
(20:00):
You know, so I, I love my lifetoday as much as I love my life
then, you see, it's importantthat we understand we move
through these ages and it'sperfectly normal.
It doesn't mean that your bestdays are behind you.
It's actually, I, I would argueit's the other way around.
If you keep yourself mind andbody fit.
(20:21):
You can have just as much fun inyour 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond
because you've got the wisdom.
Get the wisdom, you've generallygot the disposable income,
you've got new technologies.
So life ain't over after 40.
Trust me on this.
James (20:40):
I can kind of falch because I dance.
One thing I love to do isdancing and see me in a dance
floor, I dance like nobody'swatching.
I'm one of them.
As soon as I get into dancefloor and music hits, I'm just,
I just go, I'm like a racehorseI have that much energy and it's
(21:01):
just because dancing's one thingI have found over the last three
years that I just love to do,and that's the key.
It's finding what you love todo.
And that's, that again, findingwhat you love to do, that's a,
that's a journey of exploringdifferent things as well.
But once you do, will, you willmove your day around.
(21:22):
You will, you will, you will goto these events rather than go
to see family.
Because you know, these thingsbring you joy.
Stephen Hinds (21:31):
Good words, let's put a pin in that, bring you
joy, to give you a feeling ofelation.
Yeah, they're releasingendorphins and all this.
Now, you, you lead me on to apoint, a big, a big thing I make
is a difference, a distinctionbetween two words, vulnerability
and weakness.
(21:52):
Vulnerability is where you arecomfortable in your own skin and
you don't mind people knowingabout it.
So for instance, you're, you'reactually being vulnerable on the
dance floor.
You're opening yourself up forcriticism from others, right?
That's vulnerable.
It doesn't mean you're weak.
I would argue it's a strength.
(22:13):
It's a character strength to beso comfortable enough for you to
go on that dance floor andbehave like an idiot.
And not care, see what I mean?
Or be perceived by other peopleto be behaving like an idiot
because of those societal normsand these, these boundaries we
put on ourselves.
And I would transpose that in mybusiness coaching world into a
(22:34):
leader or a CEO or something.
Going into a meeting and beingcomfortable not being the
smartest guy in the room andaccepting that you would have to
ask for advice from otherpeople.
That's some, some leaders, manyleaders see that as a weakness,
but it's actually an incrediblypowerful move to make in terms
(22:57):
of building trust, in terms ofbuilding credibility, because no
one can possibly be all thingsto all men, you see, so you go
into the room and you say,Right, I'm not a specialist in
this area.
Tell me what you think aboutthis.
And you're giving the grouppermission to speak their mind.
(23:18):
But what you've shown them for ahuman level is yeah.
You're not faking it.
You're not pretending to beinvincible, you know, and I saw
it by leaders in the army.
I used it myself in the militaryas well.
You lean on your specialists andyou call them in and say, right,
you're the specialist in thisarea.
What would you advise me to do?
(23:40):
I haven't given up control.
I haven't given up command.
I've asked the specialist forhis opinion on something.
That's vulnerability in aleadership perspective.
But it's not weakness.
This is the key.
It's strength because thosepeople will respect you so much
more, providing you handle it inthe right way.
(24:00):
You know, you don't say, Oh,hell, I don't know.
I don't know.
You know, you say you're this,but you're my engineer.
This is an engineering task.
What is your opinion?
And they go, right, sir.
I think we should do this.
Thank you.
See that?
No loss of command and control,but I've shown vulnerability and
I've accepted that I'm not.
the smartest guy in the room.
(24:22):
So that's a, that's a powermove.
James (24:27):
So so how would you distinguish between a weakness
and what was the other word?
Sorry.
Stephen Hinds (24:36):
Vulnerability.
James (24:38):
Vulnerability.
How would you distinguishbetween a so for the people out
there who are listening now, howwould they distinguish between a
vulnerability and a weakness?
Stephen Hinds (24:48):
Well, this is the thing.
A weakness is something thatsociety or our own perceptions
places upon us.
You know, like you might, youmight be sat at the edge of the
dance floor, right?
And you see all these peoplemoving, you know, pulling some
proper moves, popping shapes orwhatever you called it in your
day, right?
Yeah.
(25:09):
And you think, oh, I can't dothat.
No, you'd love to dance, but youcan't dance, right?
And, and it's making youunhappy.
You've created that as aweakness, right?
So to flip that into avulnerability and a strength.
It's for you to say, I'm not asgood as them, but I don't care
(25:32):
because I'm just going to go andenjoy it, right?
So you've got all those people.
This, this is a preconception wehave.
We, we, we assume that we willbe judged by others.
That's the fear that peoplehave, right?
Being judged.
The bad news is you will alwaysbe judged.
Everyone's judging everyoneevery time.
(25:54):
Yeah.
It's human nature.
We're constantly gauging.
Is this guy a friend or foe?
Is this a threat and all thatkind of stuff.
So we're doing it.
We can't turn it off.
Right?
So vulnerability is aboutsaying, well, if they're going
to judge me, they can judge mefor who I actually am.
Right?
So you go on the dance floor,right?
And you've got all theseprofessionals.
(26:15):
And you're strutting about likeyou've, I don't know, you've got
ants in your pants or somethinglike that, right?
Weaknesses, a weakness mindsetwill tell you that you can't
enjoy the dancing becausethey're all laughing at you.
But two things are true.
If they laugh at you, that showsa weakness in their character,
(26:36):
right?
But if they step in and help youand give you some advice, so,
you know, or they just let yoube you and they're happy for
you, then that's good character.
That's good people, right?
So they, they're, they're notjudging you.
They're, they're accepting youfor who you are and those are
your tribe.
Those are the people you want tohang out with, So that's, that
(26:57):
would be a weakness.
And if you, if you feel aweakness and you feel anything
professionally or personallythat you cannot.
You cannot express yourself in away for fear of what other
people think, then that's aweakness.
Right.
A vulnerability is knowing thatyou're not the best dancer in
the room, right?
(27:19):
Because then you can dosomething about that.
And there's a fundamentaldifference here.
I'll explain the difference.
Vulnerability is knowing you'renot the best dancer in the room.
That allows you to go to a gooddancer and say, I'm not a good
dancer.
You are.
Show me how to dance.
That's a power move.
You've identified there's adelta in your skills or your
(27:41):
abilities.
And you're taking steps toaddress it.
Because that good dancer canremember when he couldn't dance,
she couldn't dance.
And they will willingly help yougo there.
That's showing vulnerability.
Vulnerability is the deltabetween where I am now and what
I want to be.
Weakness is when you see that,or you perceive that, you do
nothing about it, and it causesyou not to be that person.
(28:05):
Right?
So that's That's my definitionof weakness.
Weakness is bad.
Vulnerability, good.
James (28:14):
so really, you could turn anything a weakness or a
vulnerability.
So I'll give you an example, forexample, you had self doubt.
You would naturally see selfdoubt as probably a weakness
because you're doubting yourselftoo much, then at the same time
you could turn self doubt, okay,I might doubt myself in this
(28:35):
ability, who can I turn to toget some advice and some help
from?
Would that be right?
Stephen Hinds (28:41):
Precisely.
So self doubt keeps you small.
That's a weakness, right?
And you do nothing about it.
You just accept you're locked.
Self doubt as a vulnerabilitydoes two things.
It keeps you honest.
It stops you getting arrogant,but it's a start point for
growth.
(29:02):
So you accept I'm not as good aswe keep going back to dancing,
but you know, I would like totalk more about leadership or
something in a business context,but we'll stick with dancing
because you love it.
That's good.
Okay.
So, you think you take thatvulnerability shows great
awareness, right?
Shows that I know I'm not a gooddancer, but it gives you a start
(29:22):
point to say, right, what am Igoing to do about that?
So it's a start point forgrowth.
Right.
And, and people talk aboutimposter syndrome and imposter
syndrome is a valid experienceproviding we don't let it take
charge because it means thatyou're stepping up to a
different level.
(29:43):
So it's, it's a, it's anindicator of growth, providing
you manage it.
All of these things.
need to be managed correctly.
They, you know, they can be goodfor you.
They can be bad for you.
All depends on how you handlethem.
So someone who's got no impostersyndrome, beware, right?
(30:03):
They're, they're a verydangerous person or a very
stupid person.
If, if you know, the specialforces, military special forces
will tell you anybody thatdoesn't feel fear is a
psychopath.
You know, because courage isabout feeling fear, then doing
it.
But they don't want to work withpeople that don't feel fear
because those are, you know handgrenades, you know, they're,
(30:26):
they're wildcards.
That makes sense.
James (30:29):
That makes sense.
That makes a lot of sense.
So self doubt obviously keeps usin negative thinking patterns.
kind of strategies can peoplestart to incorporate in order to
turn self doubt into a growthexperience?
Stephen Hinds (30:46):
Really simple routine to go through.
First of all, just pause and askyourself a simple question is,
is what I'm telling myself true?
You know, is it true that I'mnot a good dancer?
I'm not the best dancer.
Yeah, that can be true.
Is it true that I'll never beable to dance like that?
(31:09):
You know, is it true thatthey're all laughing at me?
Really?
Are they really laughing at me?
Look at them, you know, and you,you you question your, this
inner critic, this, cause that,that's what it comes from.
It comes to this inner voice.
in our head, which is developed,is developed to keep us safe
(31:30):
from an evolutionaryperspective.
Our bodies want us to live, eat,breathe, procreate, nothing
else.
Your physiology doesn't carewhether you have joy,
satisfaction, motivation, youknow, purpose, fulfillment.
Not interested.
It's about a survival of thespecies.
So we have all these systemsinside us that when you say,
(31:53):
Paragliding?
That sounds like a riot.
You know, every nerve and sinewin your body says, Shut up, you
fool.
We're not designed to fly.
You see what I mean?
So we have to overcome thoseinternal systems.
Yeah.
And sometimes those internalsystems get overdeveloped and
that's when we eitherindividually or with coaches we
(32:15):
can rewire them usingneuroplasticity.
James (32:19):
I thought, yeah.
So what other things couldpeople do really helps you find
of your clients?
Makes
Stephen Hinds (32:26):
So well, with my clients, it's great because we
can fast track through all ofthese things.
You know, you and I have beenchatting now for 35 minutes and
I'm dropping all these truthbombs and enlightenment and all
that.
We can read books, self helpbooks are good.
The problem with self help booksis they deal on a cognitive
intellectual level.
(32:47):
I'll give you an example, right?
Suppose you're overweight,right?
I'm going to write a book.
I'm going to say, if you'reoverweight, don't eat shit,
right?
Eat vegetables at a reasonabletime and do exercise.
Boom.
There you go.
10 million copies.
I'm a best time seller.
Everybody reads it and goes.
(33:07):
That makes perfect sense.
Don't eat shit and exercise.
Boom.
Why are we all not super leanathletes?
Because self help books deal onan intellectual conscious level.
Whereas alcohol, poor sleep,poor diet, addictions, they're
all happening in our emotionalcells.
(33:29):
They are tied back to childhoodtrauma or stories that we are
telling ourselves in our ownhead.
So the problem comes when it'sten o'clock at night on a
Saturday night and all yourmates are at the pub with their
girlfriends and you're homealone and it's just you and the
fridge and a sponge cake.
(33:51):
You tell me what self help bookyou're going to read that will
say that.
You see what I mean?
So this is where the coachingcomes in to go to that deeper
level because.
Overeating, undereating, alcoholabuse, anything like that are
outputs of an emotional needinside the body, and it
generally takes a coach to goand do the deep work and
(34:14):
understand the inputs to aim offso that you understand why
Saturday night in front of thefridge is triggering you to want
to eat cake.
Does that make sense?
I keep answering that, but
James (34:27):
Or, or, it, you, almost flushed upon you.
So, I'll give you an example.
I mentioned beforehand that Ihad a tooth out.
Now, I've had three teeth out atthe moment.
good, because I always used tolove eating fruit.
But also, I've got a sweettooth.
I'm almost, I've got this ideain my head, that I don't want to
(34:49):
end up in my fifties, with falseteeth like my nan.
So suddenly, that kind offeeling, it's like, no, okay, so
then it makes it easier.
So I've realized that puttingsugar out, I've got to do it.
I have to do it, otherwise I endup with false teeth.
Stephen Hinds (35:07):
Now that's, that's a, that is one method to
do it.
Okay.
I would counter that with you'rein constant denial.
You've got to be constantlyvigilant.
You'll eventually have a thingcalled decision fatigue where it
will be 10 o'clock on a Saturdaynight and something else will
(35:27):
have happened in your lifebecause think, listen to me
describe this and see if yourecognize it.
As events are happening in yourlife and emotions are being felt
in your body.
You're just writing out a listof, I shouldn't eat sugar,
however, you know, football teamjust got beat, it's Saturday
night, come on, everybody'sentitled to have a little bit of
a good time.
(35:48):
It's only going to be one bag ofharibo.
It's alright, I'll go to the gymand do an extra half.
Are you hearing this?
yeah, this, this is your bodyand your mind convincing you
because they know the Haribo isin the fridge, you see?
So, that's you got, that's you,you've got to be vigilant
against that and that's why somany people fail.
(36:09):
However, if you understand thesystems involved, that it's
carbs that you're craving.
And if you can set up in aroutine where you're getting
more protein into your body atthe right times and you
anticipate that Friday nightsare your absolute kryptonite,
you know, when you're satwatching your favorite TV show
(36:30):
and you're comfy after a hardweek's work and you know that
time is when the carb attack isgoing to come because it's
carbs.
It's not sugar.
It's not horrible.
So you can prep and prime yourbody to have enough protein in
it, which subdues that craving.
And then suddenly, you're sat infront of the telly and your
(36:50):
partner will say, Do you wantsome haribo?
And you will naturally go no.
It's okay.
You see?
Now, what's the smarter, mostlikely to be continued version?
Preparation or denial?
You see what I mean?
James (37:08):
If you become more conscious, it'll be preparation.
But I always, there's alwaysgoing to be times where it's
just going to get you somepoint.
Stephen Hinds (37:18):
This is my point.
If you're prepared and you getinto habits and routines.
Guess what you get?
You get the chance to sayactually it's Friday night, I'm
going to have some Haribo.
But here's a question that Ialways ask people.
People, I've helped people stopsmoking, stop drinking, stop
various different things, right?
(37:39):
All you have to do is askyourself at the time of
choosing, am I choosing thisbecause I want it or because I
need it?
And if, even if you need it,that's cool because then what I
say is, okay, you need it, fairenough, you've lost this battle,
but let's see if we can winsomething back.
(38:00):
I need it, I'm going to havesome Haribo, I'm going to have a
beer, right, but it's quarterpast nine, I'm going to have it
at 9.
30.
So you're not doing the blanketdenial, which will crush you
because you'll spend your wholenight saying beer, beer, got to
have a beer, need a beer, need abeer.
Yeah.
No, you take control of yourmind and your body in the
(38:22):
situation.
And you say, I'm going to have abeer at 930.
930 comes and you go, I'm goingto have to have a beer.
Good.
Celebrate it because you neededa quarter past and you didn't
have it until half past.
Subtle changes, but it keeps youin control, right?
Then you accept, yeah, I felloff the wagon.
(38:44):
Next day you wake up, no guilt,no shame.
You just do an after actionreview, as we call it in the
military, say, right, let's makesure this doesn't happen again.
That's how it works.
That's, that's the.
Secret to long term habit forme.
James (39:04):
So can you go into a little bit more detail with
that?
Because I know from Shaw thathabits is the key.
So a great example is my habit Ido before I go shopping is I'll
have food.
So when I'm in the shop, I'mless likely to shove loads of
crap into my trolley.
Or another one might be havingegg with avocado for breakfast
(39:28):
because I know that fills me upand I'm less likely to snack.
How, how do you help clients tobuild new habits?
Stephen Hinds (39:36):
right.
So I use a thing from Dr.
Ben Hardy and it's called the,the, the future self and your
future self can be you tonight,you next week, you next month,
next year, 10 years time,whatever it is.
Right.
So it all starts with beingconscious.
And taking control of thesituation and let's use your
(39:58):
example of the shopping thing,right?
You've projected into the futurein two hours time I'm going to
be in Asda, Tesco, whatever,right?
And I know that those aisles aredesigned specifically to catch
my eyes with all the chocolateand sweets and everything like
that.
That's their job.
(40:19):
That's why they make billions ofpounds a year.
By catching poor, you know,unsuspecting idiots like us with
all the shiny wrappers and thediscounts and all that.
So that's your future version ofyourself.
James, James at five o'clock isgoing to be in is going to be in
Tesco.
Let's prepare for that.
Let's visualize that.
Right.
(40:39):
What can I do?
I know what I can do.
I can eat some protein.
I can get something in my bodythat's going to curb that.
Primeval response to try and getcarbs when I'm surrounded by
carbs.
So that's how you do it.
You look to the future versionyourself And you kind of ask
them, what would that version ofJames want me to do?
(41:00):
So, James, your 50 year oldJames, or your Saturday
afternoon James, both want younot to put sweets in your
trolley.
So, what would their advicewould be?
Go and have a banana right now,or go and have something.
Protein shake or something likethat.
So that when you are in that,when you're in that threat zone,
(41:21):
shall we say that you've gotyour best armed for, for that
experience
James (41:28):
That makes sense.
So it's like visualisation,visualising yourself
Stephen Hinds (41:32):
your future self.
James (41:33):
10, yourself 10, 15 years time and really allowing
yourself to feel into it.
Stephen Hinds (41:40):
Yeah.
Make, make them your new bestfriend, right?
So instead of this inner voicethat you have now saying, go on,
get the sweets, get the cake.
You can actually train using, Ihave a six week coaching
program, sorry to drop that inthere, where by doing
repetitions and visualizationsof these kind of things, we can
(42:00):
literally rewire your brain suchthat it would show up on an MRI
scan as being rewired.
Where you would have a differentexperience to what you've always
done all your life.
So even though you're 40 now,and you say, Oh, I'm just a
sugar man.
I'm a fiend for jelly babies.
We can change that in six weeksand make you think it's
(42:23):
ridiculous.
The idea even to drink, even toeat a jelly baby, you know, so
that that's all possible.
But you do that by visualizingyour future self and asking them
what they would want you to do.
Then you listen to that voice.
James (42:41):
Many men have grown up over the years with the idea
thinking feeling emotions isweak.
How can men overcome that beliefand how can they start to allow
themselves to feel what's goingon?
Say for example having a hardday.
(43:03):
But they can't, they're notallowed to feel that anger.
How would you suggest that theycan start to allow themselves to
feel that anger?
Stephen Hinds (43:11):
So, there's nothing in the human body, apart
from the earlobes and theappendix, that isn't there for a
reason.
Physical, mental, emotional,physiological.
They all have a purpose.
Okay?
And, we subdue anything at ourperil.
(43:32):
So if your body wants to sleepand you keep it awake, it will
bite you.
Yeah?
Same with anger, same withsorrow, same with any kind of
emotion, really.
It has to, it has to have anoutlet.
So let's take anger, forinstance.
If someone, if someone is livinga life as a painter and
(43:55):
decorator, Right.
Or they're working in thefactory or they're working in an
office or whatever.
And they're feeling so angrythat they feel like they have to
have a physical outburst.
Then that first of all tells methere's something in that
environment is not right.
And I would go back to my lifeaudit.
(44:16):
Things that give you joy, thingsthat take your joy.
Because it's not normal.
Left to its own devices, thehuman body will not be angry.
It's not a healthy condition tobe in.
It's not an efficient thing,condition to be in.
Okay, so there's something inthe environment that's causing
that emotion to happen.
And that's the first thingyou've got to look at, because
(44:37):
your body will not be denied.
It will come out somewhere.
It will either come out in abalanced safe way, or it will
appear somewhere, road rage,excess alcohol, fighting in the
pub.
Arguing with the wife or worse,that kind of thing, that energy
must come out.
Energy cannot be created ortaken away.
(44:59):
It's got to go to another place,right?
So, this is, this is why, pointnumber one, if you're feeling
unnatural emotions, often, moreoften than the circumstance
would apply, I mean, if you'rein a patrol base in Afghanistan,
and you're feeling daily angry,stressed, frightened, you know,
(45:20):
upset, then that's fine becausethe environment matches the
emotion.
But if you're living youraverage working day and you're
feeling extreme emotions,something's out of the line.
Remember, go back to our twoexternal personas, our internal
persona.
The further apart they are, themore inclined we are for stress
and stuff like that.
So that said, when we do feelemotions, we should feel
(45:43):
emotions.
We should let them happen.
You know, big boys don't cry andall that rubbish, right?
Trust me.
I have been in three war zones.
I have seen some of the biggest,scariest human beings, right?
Whose tattoos have got tattoos.
Right?
And I have seen them sob likebabies.
(46:04):
And I don't remember any of theother heroes around them
thinking any less of them forit.
Because it was, it's a naturalresponse.
It's often a mark of respect,it's grief, it's a mark of love
for other people, that kind ofthing.
And the right people in yourright tribe around you will not
(46:24):
judge you.
It goes back to this weakness,vulnerability piece, yeah?
If you've got a problem with aman crying, It's your problem.
It's not his problem.
He's showing vulnerability.
You're showing weakness.
So, but at the same time, youdon't want to be in the middle
(46:46):
of a boardroom, just solvingyour heart out, you know?
So again, it's about awareness.
It's about catching itbeforehand, anticipating I'm
going to, supposing your dogsjust died, right?
I don't make that flippantlybecause I, I've rescued 1500
dogs and dogs are, you know, themore people I meet, the more I
love dogs.
That's how my life is.
(47:07):
So if one of my dogs has beenill or injured or died recently
and I'm going into a boardroommeeting, I'm aware of that.
And I might say to people, Heyfolks, just to make you aware,
we had a situation this morning.
One of our dogs passed away.
I'm here.
I'm, you know, I'm going to dothe best I can.
(47:28):
But, you know, you know, atleast you understand the
background and then someone willsay something that will trigger
an emotion and yeah, you mightget a bit of a tear in your eye
and a bit of a sob, you know,that's understandable and I've
preempted it and I'm showing abit of vulnerability.
What I wouldn't do is.
(47:48):
Throw myself on the floor andsay, oh, poor Rusty he's my
favorite dog.
You know, and, you know, thatwould be inappropriate'cause
there's no need for that kind ofbehavior.
But the, the visceral feeling ofemotions is utterly allowed and
important that we allow it out,you know?
So if, if you don't want to doit publicly, go and take
(48:09):
yourself into a private space.
Go for a walk and go and sobyour heart out.
But do not try and keep a lid onit.
Okay.
James (48:20):
Yeah, sounds, it sounds good because I know from my own
experiences that I've had issueswith pent up anger and I used
to, until I became aware of it,used to go out drinking and
that's how my anger wouldrelease because when I'm sober I
would push it down.
But when I drank, there was thisidea that suddenly it would come
(48:44):
out with a vengeance.
But, obviously becoming aware ofthat I was able to find more
healthier ways such as, I canfocus anger when I do exercise,
I can shout into a pillow whenI'm by myself, other, other ways
like that.
Stephen Hinds (49:03):
So those are outputs and that's fine and it's
great that you've, you'veunderstood that.
But so many people are livingthat right now in the twenties,
thirties, forties.
And it's, that's the importantthing.
That's what's causing our theexplosion and mental health
issues, right?
Because Never, never before hasit been so apparent to us what
(49:24):
perfection looks like.
Every Instagram post we see,every advertising, every, every
Netflix movie we see, we seethis fallacy of perfectionism.
And consciously orsubconsciously, we have been
primed that we're not goodenough.
And that, you know, if we onlybuy that soap or we only wear
(49:46):
those clothes, we'll, we'll bejust that little bit better.
The whole industrial complex,media complex is geared against
us.
The news is geared against us,right?
The news is just four minutes ofdepressing noise between
advertising revenue.
That's all it is.
(50:07):
It's, it's tapping into ourevolutionary need to understand
the fear and the threat.
So they tell us really bad newsfor four minutes.
And you know, it's just at theend of the four minutes to say,
but that's not all.
Something terrible has happenedas well.
We'll tell you that after thebreak.
Watch all these adverbs on Shitethat you don't need but your
(50:30):
brain's there tuned like, oh mygod, what happened?
What happened in that weevillage in some place in Africa
that I can't even pronounce?
I need to know.
You know, we have all thesesystems in our bodies and that
can trigger depression, anxiety,anger, all of these kind of
things.
So it's important that we manageour environment, but if we're
(50:52):
feeling these things too often,then that's when we need to talk
to someone else.
It could be a friend but ideallya coach, this is why we do what
we do because we can identifyit.
This is so important becausethis, this is a why I do my job
and one of my biggestfrustrations in my job.
I deal with people in thethirties, forties, fifties,
(51:14):
sixties, right?
And I give them insights andthis isn't just me.
This isn't a pitch because mostcoaches, any good coach can do
this.
I give them insights intothings.
I take them back to places wheresay, well, that was the incident
that caused this.
And this, this pattern isrepeating throughout your life.
And they say, my God, I've, I'vecarried this with me for
(51:35):
decades.
I've always thought I wasn'tgood enough.
I've always been this person.
And I just give them insights.
And every day, this is mypassion, my joy in this job.
Every day I get messages on myphone saying, Oh my God, I've
had this insight of thisbreakthrough.
You've changed my life.
You've saved my life.
(51:56):
You know, because we carry this,the voices, the stories that we
tell ourselves in our head.
If they're the things that arecausing these problems, then you
need to talk to someone who canjust talk you through them.
So just saying things out loudcan be all it takes to cause
(52:18):
that bubble to burst and you go,my God, there is hope.
I'm not broken, you know, soanyone who's suffering anger,
depression, anxiety, doing,doing harm to themselves or
others, it's not normal.
It is not normal.
There is an underlying problemthat must be addressed because
(52:39):
it will not go away on its own.
It's another key factor as well.
James (52:44):
So what are some key daily practices people can do in
order to start to uncover someof these stories that we're
telling ourselves with ourmental health.
Yeah,
Stephen Hinds (53:01):
So if you're feeling unhappy, if you, if you
think the whole world's comingat you, I promise you it's not.
We've never been safer,healthier, luckier, richer than
we are today.
All right.
The media doesn't want you toknow that.
But again, I've been in threewars.
I've seen every culture.
I've been all around the world.
I promise you the human animalis fundamentally kind and
(53:24):
community focused.
Right.
And if anyone disagrees withthis, I'll ask you to do this
simple exercise, compare theamount of evil people, evil, bad
people that you have actuallymet.
Eyeball to eyeball in your life,not read about, heard about, had
(53:47):
an entire nation or creed orwhatever be described to you.
Actually met in your life andcompare it to the number of good
people or at least neutralpeople that you've met in the
last week.
And that list will be infinitelylarger than that list of evil
(54:07):
people for your entire life.
So that's just basic maths.
The world is not as bad as themedia and the politicians will
wish that.
So getting into that mindset.
Now, I actually have a five daycourse on, on I'll give you the
link.
You can drop it in there on it'sfree.
It's on YouTube.
I call it my five day challengeand it's a challenge to change
(54:30):
your mindset about you and aboutthe world.
And one of those things in thereis an exercise called the CIA
model control influence exceptwe've only got 100 percent of
energy that we can give out inthe day, right?
It's how we're designed.
So when we, when we define ourday in those three categories.
We can allocate energyaccordingly.
(54:51):
Things I can control, things Ican do, say, think, not do, not
say, not think, influence mypartner, my family, my
colleagues, my immediatevicinity.
I can influence them.
I can ask them to do stuff.
I can hope they will do things.
Everything else falls into theaccept or ignore category.
(55:12):
Right, so the, the Ukraine war,the climate, the hurricanes that
are happening, the typhoons thatare happening.
If you're sat in Wrexham orBarnsley, And it's a Monday
morning, right?
It's okay to be aware of thosethings.
It's okay as a human to havecompassion for people who are
suffering.
(55:32):
But if you're not sleepingbecause of the typhoons in
Senegal, if that's evenpossible, then you're burning
energy from your finite battery,you're burning energy and stuff
that you cannot influence orcontrol, guess where that
balance gets taken from?
(55:52):
From the areas that you cancontrol, the areas you can
influence.
So if you're not turning up foryourself or you're not turning
up for your family or your jobbecause you're burning energy
over here on things that are waybeyond your control, then that's
an awareness that you canadjust.
And say, I'm not going to, I'mnot going to give energy to that
(56:14):
because I can't change it, youknow, so that's the CIA model.
Gratitude's another one.
We, we need three positives inour life to counter one negative
because all of the people in thecaves when we were cavemen who
heard the strange noise andwent, Oh, I wonder what that is.
They all got eaten by thestrange noise, right?
(56:35):
So we learn to be cautious.
We learn to err on the side ofsafety and be negative.
Right.
So all the ones that survived inthe caves were the ones that
were saying, no, I don't want togo there.
That sounds scary.
You know, that was anevolutionary thing.
So we are tuned to the negative.
That's why the media always gaveus negative stuff.
Can you imagine if Sky News comeon and said, Hey, everything's
(56:57):
fabulous.
Honestly, the world's goinggreat.
We don't go.
Oh, I wasn't expecting that.
Fair enough.
Switch off the news.
That doesn't work.
They need to sell advertisingrevenue.
So they need to say, right, thewhole world's great, but seeing
this tiny little corner here,there's some shit going down.
And we're going to send all thereporters there and we're going
(57:17):
to cover it for the next fivedays.
Well, our brains suck that inand say, my God, the world must
be a terrible place.
Look, those people in, you know,butt fuck nowhere in Louisiana
are still got no home.
That's 8 billion people and wefound 20 of them are having a
bad day.
You see how our minds can befocused in on the negativity so
(57:39):
we can understand that we cancontrol that and we can say,
right, let's think of threethings that I'm grateful for.
I'm grateful for my wife.
I'm grateful for my daughter.
I'm grateful for my health.
I'm grateful for my dogs, youknow, and I consciously pump
these positive things into mybrain to override the default
negativity.
(58:00):
So gratitude is another one.
Got time for one more?
James (58:06):
yeah, yeah.
Stephen Hinds (58:07):
Right.
Our emotional body It's muchmore powerful than our conscious
brain.
Conscious thinking is late tothe party and it's, it's the,
it's the weakest part of us.
Our emotions will alwaysovercome our thoughts, all
right?
Except when we use breathing,right?
(58:27):
So, all of our senses, hearing,seeing, touching, tasting, all,
all these things, all they are,are interfaces to get knowledge
to the brain, so the brain candecide.
Are we fighting tigers, or arewe resting, are we digesting,
sleeping?
That's the binary decision thatyour brain makes.
So it's taking all of this inputin.
(58:49):
Sky News is coming in,Facebook's coming in, and all
that kind of thing.
And it's telling our nervoussystem, holy moly.
Never seen so many saber toothedtigers, you know, we've got to
pump our bodies full of cortisoland adrenaline.
We've got to be on edge.
We've got to be ready for thefight at any second.
That's what, that's whatFacebook and Sky News is making
our bodies do.
(59:10):
Now, we can't control our bloodpressure.
We can't control this noisethat's coming at us.
We can, we can switch it off.
But the thing that we cancontrol is our breathing and
there's a thing called heartrate variability.
The brain listens to the heart.
There's, there's neurons aroundthe heart, which send signals to
the brain.
(59:31):
And it's the.
It's the variability of theelectrical signals between our
heartbeats that tell the brainwhether we are preparing to
fight Tiger or not.
So, by, if you're stressed, thisis something that fighter pilots
use incidentally, right?
Most extreme physical duress,mental pressure that people are
under.
(59:52):
By, it's a very simple acronym,it's BREATHE.
Breathe regularly, evenly, andthrough the heart.
And if you can just take aminute or two to sit with your
eyes closed somewhere.
And just make your breathingeven, so no sharp sawtooth
breaths.
Not like this, just gentlenatural breaths, but make it as
(01:00:15):
smooth as you can.
What you'll do is you'll, you'llsmooth out your heart rate.
It'll slow down, but it doesn'thave to be super slow.
But what you're doing is you'remaking the electrical signals
between the beats.
Stable.
Those electrical signals aroundthe heart send to the brain to
say all must be well with theworld.
(01:00:37):
So it triggers what's calledyour parasympathetic nervous
system that says calm, rest,relax the muscles, lower stress
levels, everything like that.
So by using your breathingalone, that's the only method or
the main method that I know of.
But we can impact our physiologydirectly.
(01:00:58):
You can't, you can't increaseyour blood pressure.
You can't make yourself warmeror colder without clothes, but
your breath can talk thelanguage that your brain
understands to understand fight,flight, or rest and digest.
So those are, those are three,three critical areas that, that
you today can take charge ofyour mind and your body and your
(01:01:21):
stress levels.
James (01:01:24):
Thank you very much, Stephan.
Just quickly, can you just tellus what you do and how people
can get in contact?
Stephen Hinds (01:01:30):
You'll find me on LinkedIn Stephen Hines, MBA.
I'm I offer help to people whoare already successful and
independent and realizing that,as we said, they're coming to
the end of the first age of man.
And now they're wondering, howare they going to get out into
the second age?
Or they may not be aware that'sthe point that they're at and
they're feeling this delta wherethey're, they're trying to be
(01:01:53):
this guy in the office or thislady in the office.
but their internal inner self iskicking and screaming.
Those people want to talk to me.
They can find me on LinkedIn.
I'm on Facebook.
And what I offer is a 15 minutecall just to say, hi, how are
you?
Who are you?
And then I, I also have my fiveday challenge, which is free to
(01:02:13):
people.
I understand that some peopledon't want to work with a coach.
They're not ready to bevulnerable or not.
Maybe they just don't have thefinances.
Well, those five day, that fiveday challenge can be found on
YouTube.
It could also be find myLinkedIn thing my LinkedIn
channel, but when we have a 15minute call, what I will
probably set up providingeverything aligns.
(01:02:35):
is we'll go through a one hourcoaching session after that,
where we'll say, this is what itfeels like to be coached by me.
And then at the end of thathour, generally people have
massive, massive breakthroughsand insights.
Very often you'll see grown mencry because I've finally given
them permission for it tohappen.
But it's just a release of allthis pent up energy.
(01:02:56):
Then after that, we can say,right, let's look at my six week
program, my three month program,that kind of thing.
You know?
So, there you go.
James (01:03:06):
Thank you very much.
Stephen Hinds (01:03:08):
You're welcome.
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