March 27, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode, I sit down with former military leader and human performance coach, Rob to explore what it takes to build confidence, resilience, and authentic leadership in today’s world.
🔥 Key Topics Discussed:
- Why so many men feel lost and disconnected – and how to find true purpose.
- Overcoming self-doubt and fear – practical strategies for shifting from hesitation to decisive action.
- The power of breathwork and cold exposure – how these daily practices build mental resilience and emotional strength.
- Lessons from military leadership – why self-awareness, discipline, and emotional mastery create strong, effective leaders.
- How to break free from attachment, ego, and external validation – and start living authentically.
- Building a support network – the importance of mentors, coaches, and strong peer connections.
- Redefining success – why fulfillment comes from within, not external achievements.
🚀 What You’ll Gain from This Episode:
- A clear roadmap to developing self-trust, confidence, and emotional mastery.
- Practical techniques to calm the nervous system and make better decisions.
- Insights into why men struggle with purpose and how to realign with your true path.
- A deeper understanding of authentic leadership and personal growth.
If you’re ready to stop overthinking, build resilience, and lead with confidence, this episode is a must-listen!
🎧 Tune in now and start your transformation.
About Rob:
Rob Colley brings over 23 years of exceptional experience across military and civilian sectors, with a focus on human performance, leadership, and recovery. His journey began with eight years in the Royal Marines, followed by 15 years in elite military units, where he led small teams on high-stakes missions in some of the world's most demanding environments. Recognised with the Distinguished Service Cross for Gallantry, Rob's career highlights include leading critical operations and serving as Chief Instructor for advanced military training programs, mentoring recruits in specialized disciplines such as diving and combat swimming. These intense experiences inspired him to delve into the missing elements of human performance, leading to groundbreaking work in resilience, recovery, and well-being.
After transitioning from active service, Rob became the Director of Elite Performance and Training at Deep Research Labs, where he developed cutting-edge methodologies to prepare scientists and explorers for challenging subsea missions. Drawing on his personal journey of recovery through advanced yoga and breathwork, he has since pioneered programs that integrate military precision with holistic practices. Since 2022, Rob has offered transformative coaching, workshops, retreats, and guest speaking engagements for individuals recovering from physical and mental challenges, including military personnel, corporate leaders, and public service professionals. His approach combines breathwork, meditation, and resilience training, equipping individuals with essential tools to enhance well-being and navigate life's challenges.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
In this week's episode, we talkabout why men feel lost and
disconnected.
How to shift from doubt andhesitation to confident decision
making.
How the power of breath work andcold water exposure can help to
build practices of resilience,mental clarity and inner
strength.
And lessons from militaryleadership, how discipline, self
(00:23):
awareness and emotional masterycan shape strong leaders.
Welcome to Man (00:29):
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.
(00:50):
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 (01:07):
Hello, Rob.
Tell me about yourself.
rob (01:11):
Hi, James.
So I grew up in the Midlands.
I left school at the age of 16and I joined the Royal Marines a
few months after my leavingschool after my exams.
So I spent the next year in theRoyal Marines and then I went on
to another part of the military.
And lead organization.
I spent the following 15 yearsthere.
(01:31):
So yes, but most of my adultlife in in the military and I
left at the age of 40.
So my career naturally came toan end and towards the end of my
career.
I through my own personaljourney, I got really deep into
holistic healing humanperformance.
And yeah, so I was moved intothat area into sort of the
(01:51):
corporate world.
I had a short stint working fora defense company building
equipment for the military, butI soon found myself in a
corporate company focusing onhuman performance and training.
Just after that and morerecently I've just launched my
own business.
Where I've really found my pathand I'm helping people basically
by some of the lessons I'velearned along my career.
(02:12):
So yeah, so that's where I amtoday.
James (02:15):
I remember the other day we had a discussion about, a
quick discussion, and youmentioned that you went to
school within probably 20minutes of where I went to
school, in Stafford.
rob (02:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So when I saw your your biowhere you were from, yeah, just
really immediately took me backto to back to school days.
It's interesting because I'dforgotten and I'd left school at
16 and hadn't really gone backmuch.
So yeah, it immediately took meback to that place, so it was
quite a nice thing to see.
James (02:42):
A small world.
So we've got regards to thearmy.
What kind of lessons did youlearn that can really help to
shape leaders and to really helpus to drive towards purpose?
rob (02:55):
Yeah, so throughout my career, I operated in or I
worked in the conventionalmilitary and also unconventional
military.
So I guess some of the lessonsthat I learned on reflection,
and this also Corporate world isthe best leaders I saw were the
ones who'd basically done thework on themselves, either
(03:20):
knowingly or unknowingly, andthey had the lowest egos.
And they were the mostauthentic.
So I reflect on this often insome of the training that I do
with my coaching clients.
And the more you can releaseyour stuff, this insecurity, the
imposter syndrome the need to belike high status amongst your
(03:44):
peers, the more you can get ridof all that crap.
The more you can start to focuson being a better leader and
Achieving the goal of achievingthe mission for the good of your
people.
Also, another really greatrealization was that, and I
experienced this myself.
It's very difficult to do, butmaking the right decision rather
(04:07):
than the popular decision.
And again, this comes from beingvery secure in yourself, having
done all of the work, as a man,and and therefore you can make
these clear decisions based onThe right thing, or I use my
intuition quite often, ratherthan the shoulds because you're
worried about what people maythink, etc.
So those are some really biglessons that I carry forward and
(04:29):
I reflect on pretty much daily.
James (04:32):
The last 10 years I've been on this personal and
spiritual development journey,and it's almost become an
obsession.
What I've noticed is how calm Iam, how much I trust my
intuition.
I remember being in arelationship, one of my first
relationships, and we were goingto buy a house together, but I
(04:55):
knew it, deep down, I knew itwas wrong, but I carried on with
it anyway.
Luckily, the relationship ended,and I learnt the lesson.
But, from ever since then, I'vefocused on really allowing
myself to trust my intuition ona deep level.
Even if it's unpopular.
(05:15):
But then again, the source ofsituations where you almost get
into this, into your mind, andyour mind tends to lead rather
than your heart.
So how can people shift from themind into their heart to make
decisions?
rob (05:32):
Okay, yeah, it's a really good question.
So firstly it's understandinghow it all works.
So within the system, the innermastery method that I teach, we
focus, this comes from ancientwisdom in ancient traditional
yoga.
So there are five causes ofhuman suffering.
The first one is ignorance.
So if you don't understand howYour mind works and your body
(05:54):
works, then you know you're in alosing battle.
So the only way to do that is toreally understand this, do the
work gain the wisdom and thenyou can elevate and you're
effectively seeing a newhorizon.
So how to put that intopractical terms.
So by doing a daily practice ofgetting away from or going
beyond your five senses.
(06:15):
So what I do every day.
I'm going too much into myroutine.
I do my yoga pranayama, soeffectively breath work, but
it's a deeper sense of breathwork because we're using energy
manipulation.
So we do our pranayama, doingour meditation.
And what you can do, you canstart to quieten the mind.
This is the purpose of yoga andmany other techniques.
(06:35):
You quieten the fluctuations ofthe mind, and once you quieten
the fluctuations of the mind,then you have this incredible
realization.
You can access this.
You can make this innerconnection.
You can start to get these realauthentic ideas and wisdom
coming through despite all ofthe fluctuations of the mind,
all of these little voicestelling you, you should do this,
you shouldn't do that.
(06:55):
So it's creating this theseconditions for yourself by your
daily practice, whatever you do.
I use my method to create thispiece, this inner piece that you
can protect.
And that's where you get yourwisdom from.
And what happens in this respectis, or when you apply this, is
you no longer go seeking foradvice or asking questions.
(07:16):
You've got everything you needinside.
So you stop.
Looking externally for theanswers, you can actually access
these answers from inside you.
This is what I help my clientswith.
And it's groundbreaking when youget this realization, but it all
starts with shining a light onthis stuff.
So getting rid of this ignoranceof how things work.
James (07:36):
I can understand that.
I like to go outside barefootfirst thing in the morning and
literally allow myself to groundbecause the world's just full of
moments on the news and what'sgoing on around the world.
There's so much informationcoming in and our minds are
racing around.
It's very hard to figure out theright information with what
(07:59):
everything that's going on.
And it's this idea that once youstart to.
Connect into that, into thequietness, into the wisdom, it
almost becomes your next step.
And then the next step, and thenext step, and the next step.
With regards to successful men,quite often there's a sense that
(08:22):
people should I say, men andwomen, there's this idea that a
lot of them look for fulfillmentoutside themselves, whether
that's cars, houses, money.
How can, why do men, why do theyfeel so unfulfilled inside
there?
rob (08:41):
Yeah yeah, again, brilliant one.
I talk about this on most treatsa lot.
We start off with a bigquestion, what is the, what
would success look like if wewere to put a a mission
statement on life, and it'scomes down to fulfillment,
meaningful connections and apositive contribution or
meaningful contribution to theworld.
So it's trying to measure whatyour fulfillment is or create
(09:04):
the the gauge on what yourfulfillment is.
And when you really strip itdown, when you really.
break down these things with anindividual, you work out that
actually it's about what reallyfills you up.
What what gives you, what fillsyou with joy?
I've, I'm very lucky in theplace I've landed now where I
(09:25):
don't feel like I work anymore.
I feel like I'm just fulfillingmy purpose.
And when you get to that, whatyou'll find is the universe
delivers everything you need toget there.
My, my mantra is need less andgive more.
So, flashy cars.
If you need a flashy car, thenthat's absolutely fine.
But it's when we start to strivefor excess we the sooner we get
(09:49):
to fulfilling our needs, thesooner we can get to giving
more, I will say more of apurpose and.
The more we can tread lightly onthis world, the sooner we can
get to a point where we'rehaving something to give back.
So working out what fulfills youlike what lights you up what
you, everyone knows what I'mtalking about.
When you get to that point,you've delivered good hard days
(10:11):
work or you've helped someonethat really lights you up.
So it's again, this comes backto the really diving into this
and reflecting on What yourneeds are and then what your
desires are and then scalingthem back.
If there's any excess in that,
James (10:27):
One thing that I've come to realize is that when it comes
to purpose direction, whateveryou want to call it, quite
often, self doubt, overwhelm,procrastination, feeling lost
kicks in.
What can people do or what's thefirst step that people can do in
(10:49):
order to really start to stepinto this purpose or step into
this, into their direction thatthey're meant to go in?
rob (10:59):
Yeah, so I think if self doubt and the fear cycle which
is common and again, it's athing that happens to all
humans.
So the way I personally breakthis cycle is.
I work from home often dealingwith clients online, unless I'm
running retreats and workshops.
So sometimes I can get into thisstuck cycle of not moving
forward, going around.
(11:19):
So the best, the first thing todo is to break that cycle.
So taking yourself off the X oroff the mark, okay, so out of
the the environment, whether itbe a retreat, whether it be just
a walk or getting outside, andthen you can start to reflect.
And ultimately When we doubtourselves I teach within my
method, I've got somethingcalled the Thrival Principles.
(11:41):
And one of these principles istrust, trusting yourself.
This is something that wereally, we're always working at.
We'll never get, 10 out of 10.
So we're always working on thiselement.
And the best way to do this is,to start to challenge yourself.
So seeking discomfort every day.
So that's not, so I use coldwater for this.
I've been doing cold watertraining every day.
(12:03):
Haven't missed a day for overfour years now.
And so that's one very easymedium to, to access this level
of discomfort.
And the more you do that, youbuild this incredible sense of
confidence and self trust.
And this fear of discomfortstarts to melt away.
And again, this through crossadaption, this.
Transfers into our life not onlycold water training, but if you
(12:26):
have a fear of public speakingthe thing that you really think
you should do, but you don'twant to do, nudge your edges,
just go for it and see whathappens.
Because.
We start to become moreconfident, especially as men, as
we're trying to find ourposition in this dynamic world,
which is crazy now.
But we can still do that bynudging our edges and this will
(12:46):
massively help us adapt to everyother aspect of our life.
James (12:51):
You know what, cold showers have come up twice now.
It's obviously, so I used to docold showers quite a bit, and
used to do cold baths.
I found submerging myself in acold bath quite liberating
because yes, the first 10seconds, you're like, oh, but
then you, I find myself droppinginto my body a lot when I'm in
the cold bath, but it's come uptwice.
(13:13):
So I reckon I need to restartit.
Definitely.
Definitely.
So it's also, it's.
From my own perspective, I'vebeen in business since 2018, but
I've it's been, my business hasbeen stagnant, probably for the
last since then.
So I've never really progressedand it's more I find myself
(13:33):
usually when I don't know what Ineed to do.
So if I don't have a clearenough plan, a clear enough way
forward, I either, Get bored,because I'm trying to figure out
what to do, or I find myselfgetting overwhelmed or
(13:53):
procrastinating, so I might goand watch a film, I might go and
do something else like washingor general chores in the house,
and so that's, obviously it'sbeen a reoccurring pattern, but
then I find that once youidentify the pattern, And you
are able then to look a littlebit deeper using self
development, personal growth tolook a bit deeper into it and
(14:16):
why it's happening.
Quite often underneath I findit's just like a scared little
part of ourselves.
rob (14:24):
Yeah, I think so coming from the military, and some of
the areas in the military Iworked in were some of the most
elite teams.
One thing I do miss from leavingthe military is not having this
team around me, people tochallenge me and within the
organizations I worked in wenever patted each other on the
back.
Because we're always striving tobe better and to perform higher.
(14:49):
So that's one thing I reallymiss.
I've got loved ones around mewho are very kind.
My partner, she's absolutelyamazing.
And she challenges me, helps me,but not to that level.
So I think it's reallyimportant.
And specifically as men, aswe're talking about on this
podcast I think men need.
Really strong peers and coachesand mentors to really lift them.
(15:12):
So I think you can do your ownplanning, but if no one's
holding you to account, you canslip into that cycle.
Find, I call this within my, themethod that I teach and the
method my teacher passed down tome.
We've got an element called, ora principle called inspiring
company.
So surround yourself withinspiring company.
So those who are where you wantto get to as opposed to someone
(15:36):
who isn't where you want to getto.
Someone who's done the work.
They've walked your path andthey can pull you forward.
So they're inspiring youonwards.
And it's identifying people,those around you that can be a
coach.
It can be a friend, it can be acolleague, someone who will hold
you to account on your things.
So make your plan, which is thefirst step, but then you need
(15:57):
this accountability.
So there's only so much we cando by ourselves, but.
If you're working on your ownlike you and I it's really
important to have these peoplewho you can check in with and of
course you can do the same forthem.
So that's a great tip andsomething that I've been I've
been really really hard over onfor the last sort of few years.
James (16:17):
Yeah, so it's talked about a lot by actually a lot of
successful people having theright people around you.
And in fact, I was at theprofessional speaking
association the other day, andthey were talking, the guy who
was speaking, he was talkingabout not necessarily having
also a team to push you forwardregards to business and work or
(16:37):
purpose, but also having awellbeing team around you,
somebody who you can chat to ifyou.
Need but it's it had it inlevels.
So it was 8, 9 and 10.
So people who was always there,you could literally call upon to
support you.
It's quite often you can havefriends, but you might not
(16:59):
interrupt your friends veryoften.
But it's the really goodfriends.
The ones who are going tochallenge you.
And not say, oh, you're good,you're fine, you'll do it.
You need somebody to challengeyou.
And I found that with coaches aswell.
I found certain business coachesover the years that I've had.
I found that they give you ideasand stuff, but they don't hold
(17:20):
you accountable.
So you need somebody who's goingto hold you accountable and ask
the hard questions.
Why didn't you get it done?
And even probably going a littlebit deeper, what's actually
stopping you?
Which parts of you are stoppingyou from progressing?
rob (17:37):
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
You touched on another, at apoint with regards to that
inspiring company I talkedabout.
It's like you said, having thatthe individuals, the friends or
the coaches, people are gonna bequite hard on you to really
nudge your edges.
But sometimes you want a softer.
Response.
And again, it's trying to havethat.
Also I've effectively got a a adiagram.
(17:58):
So it's me in the middle.
And one of the things Ivisualize was, okay, so if I
have a problem with, I, if Ihave a problem with business,
who could I go to?
So I've got my business person.
I've got my spiritual person.
I've got my digital courseperson.
I've got my partner for, forlove and and compassion.
So having these go to people,but you have to be able to give
(18:22):
them value as well.
So making sure that, there'sthis energy exchange.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
Knowing who to ask when you havethat specific question pop up.
James (18:31):
What I'm finding at the moment, what I'm finding at the
moment is AI.
So obviously AI is never goingto replace coaches, but there's
a program we're doing at themoment and there's different AI
bots being made for differentpurposes.
(18:53):
Obviously, A.
I.
Uses the whole of the Internetto collaborate information
together.
So if you're if you perhapscan't afford a coach, I find
that having a I actually almostgives you a helping hand with
regards to a coach.
rob (19:11):
Yeah I, yeah I've, yeah I've talked about this quite a
lot actually in my industry withmy sort of peers.
I, yes, absolutely a reallyincredible tool.
And I think it's, I usedifferent tools for different
things within my business.
The one thing I do that do, doespop up, I've been running
retreats now for over fouryears.
I've trained about 400 servicemen and women in, in recovery.
(19:35):
And the thing that AI can'treplace is this human
connection.
This sense of, this tribal feel.
And I think this is reallyimportant with men as well.
Men coming together and beingable to speak openly and talk
through some of this stuff.
With this struggle that's goingon in the world.
I'm going to talk about politicswith, With, what this toxic mix
masculinity and where menconfine themselves in this in
(19:59):
this sort of um, this era, ifyou like I think it's really
important that we come togetheroften as human beings.
And I think when we go forward,I think when you look at
business, I think businessesthat are going to be successful
going forward are the ones thatare going to bring connection
and community.
James (20:18):
Yeah, I can agree with that.
As I mentioned before westarted, I do a lot of dance.
And so you have the dancecommunity and you see the same
faces and you are able toliterally, even though during
this dance event, there's nospeaking, you're there in your
body, in your energy aroundthese people and you're able to
interact.
And it's that sense of Dancingand moving around.
(20:44):
And one thing I've beenchallenging myself to do more of
is to interact more with people,to dance with the, with other
people.
So one thing I'm great at isdancing on my own, in my own
space.
But I'm pushing myself by doing,I think it's, dance
improvisation, where literallyyou are with a partner and
(21:05):
obviously there's no speaking.
You are moving with your partnerto music.
not in any set routine, but howyour body or how the connection
between you wants to move.
And it's a sense of a number ofa couple of weeks ago, we were
doing a few of these differentmoves you can do while you're
dancing.
(21:25):
And I was able to start toincorporate some of these dance
moves, some of the, some ofthese movements into the actual
body movement.
So there's one where literallyyou can, one person comes onto
your hips and they almost spinthem around 180 degrees, and I
was able to incorporate thatinto the dance, and it's quite,
(21:48):
it's, when it happens in thatmoment, It feels good.
So there was no prep into the,Oh yeah, I'm going to do this
dance move.
I'm going to incorporate it.
But that again, that comes downto human connection and being
able to connect to that personon a deep level.
rob (22:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think I think the great thingabout humans is, aside from AI,
is You can actually get reallytriggered by other people.
We see this in relationships allof the time.
I was married for 17 years.
To an amazing woman.
She's phenomenal.
Had two amazing children.
And she was at home lookingafter them while I was at work.
(22:29):
I came home quite often, but.
There's a period in my careerwhere I was away quite a lot and
not very safe places.
So she's very worried about me.
When we eventually, when Ieventually retired from the
military when I was 40, ourmarriage just broke down.
And it's just one of thosethings we had to, but we both
accepted it and we both amicablydivorced, luckily, I'm very
(22:49):
grateful for that.
So amazing woman, amazingmother.
And after that, I thought herewe go.
I can meet people.
It's very new to me.
And yeah and I had variousfriends and a few relationships
and a few of them were verytriggering to me.
And and yeah, and it was, I wastrying to work out what happened
(23:09):
and.
When I reflect, I do a lot ofreflection, I do a lot of
journey.
That's how I I set my compassreally for going forward.
What I find was, what I foundwas, there was these patterns
that had formed and everyinteraction, whether it be just
as, a conversation online withsomeone I ever actually met,
there was a lesson from each ofthose interactions.
Which helped me to developmyself, to grow, to let go to
(23:32):
refine myself for when I meetthe one which I've met now.
And I'm, I've got all of thisI've got rid of all the crap
basically.
And I've learned a lot aboutmyself.
So I do feel that there's amassive requirement or need to
have as many human interactionsas possible in order to grow.
And we learn a lot aboutourselves from how we.
(23:53):
React to other people becauseall of these, we can have lots
of disagreements, not see eye toeye.
So it's how we conduct ourselvesin those situations around how
we react to respond to others.
So yeah, I don't think that'sgoing to be going away or being
replaced by AI anytime soon.
James (24:08):
A perfect example for myself is, at this moment in
time, certain people in thepolitics arena around the world.
I can feel myself gettingtriggered by it all.
But one thing I've come torealize the other day was that
there's a lot of hatred for someof these people.
It's almost okay, there's thishatred that I hate and I'm
(24:29):
projecting it out.
How can I bring that back tomyself in order to start to
process what I hate aboutmyself?
Because I feel what we projectout is quite often what we feel
about ourselves.
So if we have this hatred forsomebody, then we need to turn
(24:50):
that around and look at whichparts of ourselves do we
actually hate and how can westart to bring this part that we
hate and accept it for what itis and start to love that part
of ourselves.
rob (25:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
I resonate with what you'resaying with everything that's
going on.
The other thing is react to whatwe're exposed to.
So the information we have andI've have several friends on
social media and they'restarting to share some of the
things that are going on at themoment.
I've got my own personal views,but that's based on my
experience and my, my, theinformation I'm provided.
(25:23):
And I find myself trying toprivate message them and say
have you considered this?
But then, It all comes down towe, we react or respond to, what
we've been delivered in front ofus.
And generally human beings arealways doing their best, they're
trying to have good intentions.
So I try to, firstly, I try tonot get involved in these kinds
(25:46):
of politics, but yeah, like yousay, How we react, it's a mirror
on what's going on with us.
And again, with the benefit ofdoing reflection, doing
breathwork, meditation, and thenreflection, we can start to
notice these things about us.
And then we can start to dosomething about it and we can
fine tune our instrument inorder to, play better in the
(26:09):
orchestra of life.
So yeah, I think it's I welcomesome of these triggering events
or these experiences because ithelps me to really understand
more about myself.
James (26:21):
Yeah, definitely.
And I think as well, once youstart to work through these
triggers, we can, you can startto love those parts.
And it also then means thatyou're then projecting out love.
So at this moment in time,there's so much going on with
anger and hatred and all thatkind of stuff.
And the world's never been asdivided as it is now.
(26:41):
Thinking about it the other day,I don't want to add to this
divide.
Yes, there's lessons to belearned, and there's part to me
that I need to accept aboutmyself, but overall, I want to
be sending out love.
I don't want to be the part thatsends out hatred.
I want to be part, I want to bethe person that sends out love.
And then the more of us that wecan help to an effect in that
(27:03):
way, the more it's going tospread.
And then that's the way I thinkthe world's going to change.
rob (27:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
It hit the nail on the head.
One of my thrival principles atthe bottom is cultivate love
daily as opposed to fear.
And in, in yoga, there's a oneof the yamas, which is for the
listeners, it's the eight limbsof yoga.
The first one is the yama, whichis and the first one of that is
ahimsa.
It's a principle of nonviolence.
So this is nonviolence in ourthoughts, our words and our
(27:31):
actions.
So again, so if you seesomething that Is directly
opposed to your beliefs thenit's trying to.
A superior man would be able toacknowledge that and seek to
understand that perspective andunderstand this person has been
presented with the informationand therefore they've drawn that
conclusion.
That's why they feel that way.
(27:53):
So generally they're, they'vegot good intentions, but they're
passionate.
It just happens to be opposed tothe view that you've deduced
from the information you've beengiven.
So once you can master, become amaster of the inner world, you
can start to.
Dissolve this feeling ofaggression or violent thought or
violent word towards thatperson.
You can just soften and changeit.
(28:14):
It's a little bit like asamurai.
I always use that analogy.
One of the organizations Ioperated in, we had to we had to
be able to look control ournervous system.
So if something triggered us, soone of our friends got shot or
someone's shooting at us,respond violently or get
triggered by that, then you willstart to make mistakes.
You have to really bring, youhave to look after your nervous
(28:36):
system, bring yourself back downto that parasympathetic.
So it's that constant battle.
If you see something that's notright rather than triggered, a
superior man can harness thatfear and turn it into something
more positive.
And like you say, cultivate thatsense of love or kindness and
compassion, which is all in thesame bucket.
Yeah.
James (28:57):
What kind of techniques can people use to calm down
their parasympathetic nervoussystem?
rob (29:02):
Yeah, so I always say to, to people in my trainings and my
courses, when you're in thatposition, the last thing you're
thinking about is, oh, I need todo my.
My parasympathetic nerve myvagus nerve breathing.
That's the last thing you do.
So if you can catch yourself andyou can be conscious of it, so
breathing in the belly,breathing in through the nose,
there's lots and lots ofdifferent strategies, different
(29:23):
breathing techniques.
So whatever works for you.
What I use is breathing in forsix seconds and then breathing
out for six seconds through thenose, deep into the belly and
doing that for several minutes.
However, because we can't catchourselves, the best way we can
combat this is to take oursympathetic nervous system to
the gym.
(29:44):
So taking our stress response tothe gym so we can practice very
strong dynamic breathing insafety so we can also get
emotional release from this.
But what we have, what happensis we can start to build stress
resilience.
Cold water training.
So anything that's uncomfortableto us.
We do that stimulates oursympathetic nervous system So
(30:06):
when we are in these situationswe get triggers You know road
rage or in the office orwhatever it may be We're more
chilled and you'll get to thepoint in your life where you
know, it's like the matrix justdodging bullets Nothing, nothing
really bothers you and peoplelike look at you Are you real?
Why are you so chilled out allof the time?
(30:27):
And it's because things on adifferent level.
And that's when, that's wherethis inner master really comes
in.
James (30:34):
Going back to the cold showers, I think, yeah,
definitely, if you go underneatha cold shower, your automatic
reaction for your body is, butif you can literally just stop
yourself and then just go, andit will be uncomfortable and it
will be hard, especiallyinitially.
And yeah, you can, as you say,you can just start off with.
(30:56):
10 seconds or 20 seconds andthen build it up.
But if you decide to go for thewhole challenge of a whole
minute and just roll with It'sit isn't this it almost like you
said facing that discomfort
rob (31:10):
Absolutely.
I think that there's lots ofways to approach cold.
I what my career in the militaryI've spent a lot of time in the
water in the arctic in all kindsof places around the world.
And yeah, and I You But eventhough I spent all that time in
the water, I never reallyunderstood or really ever really
mastered this ability, this coldwater training, if you like.
(31:32):
I used to jump in quite looseand not really know what I was
doing.
So what I, The way I do it nowand the way I teach in my
courses is it's very slow andyou're trying to get in there,
feel everything.
And through cold water shock iswhen you jump into cold water
and your body has this autonomicreaction or automatic reaction
to take a breath.
(31:53):
That's what's going to happenwith your nervous system when
you get into the cold water.
So the best thing to do is tostart off in control of your
breathing.
So focusing, nice deep breathsin through the nose, out through
the mouth, and use that as aguide rail into the cold.
And then when you're in thecold, keep state, we'll stay
with the breath.
And then when you get to the endof each exhale, just try and
soften, try and open a littlebit more, a little bit more.
(32:15):
And before you know it, you meltaway.
We go through these threephases.
Resistance, where you don'treally want to get in the cold.
Existence, where you're in thecold water, but you're
contracted.
And then Mergence, where youcompletely open, surrender, and
into the body.
And then that puts your nervoussystem to sleep.
You slip into theparasympathetic, and you can
just stay.
And that's what you describehere when you're in there for a
(32:37):
minute.
One of the in my career had anear drowning experience where I
was basically held down by somequite heavy equipment and I
thought I was going to die.
Initially I was trying to I wastrying to, try to sort myself
out.
Saved myself.
My, basically my mask had comeoff.
I was trying to put my mask backin, my dive mask, and then
something happened.
(32:57):
I, my parrot, my sympatheticnervous system kicked in and I
went fight or flight.
And before I knew it, I wastrying to swim and pull this
big, heavy equipment up to thesurface.
Now, I had no control of mynervous system at this point on
reflection when I thought aboutit.
Later on, if I'd have justcarried out a couple of
procedures, I could havereleased myself, and I've been
(33:18):
fine, but.
This didn't happen.
So after that.
I had night terrors for abouttwo years but after that I had
the opportunity to do a freediving course with an amazing
man who I later started workingwith many years later in my last
company.
And and basically he taught meto free dive.
And this is the, this is thebeginning to my yoga and breath
(33:39):
work journey.
I realized.
how incredible the breath is atcontrolling our, how we react.
And that was the start really.
And since then after that courseI could hold my breath for five
minutes.
And just by going through thoseprocesses it was amazing how he
can hack into the body.
And that was the start of myyoga journey.
So I, that's the thing I do mostof around the water.
I think the water is incrediblefor healing, but it's an
(34:02):
incredible way to To test ourdiscomfort or give or practice
our discomfort training.
James (34:09):
Yeah, when I did a bit of cold water swimming.
Probably about a couple of yearsago, and I would wear gloves and
boots, but I would go in mynormal shorts in January's
winter, and it was freezing, andI could feel the pain going
through my body, literally,because it was that cold, but
(34:31):
eventually, probably within two,three minutes, that pain
disappeared.
And that's a quite astoundingthing, is that you can have all
this pain, but then that pain isjust temporary, and then
suddenly it's just gone anddisappeared, and it's you can
just carry on for ages.
rob (34:48):
Yeah, and that's the, and that's also the risk with the
once the alarm Signals havegone.
You've got to rely on yourdiscipline.
So we there's a training zoneAnd then after the training
zone, that's the sort of thedeath zone I call it So it's
been really aware of it.
But yeah, you're totally right.
It's amazing We have this whenwe enter the water we have this
(35:10):
I think called the mammalianreflex which basically got the
periphery All our circulatorysystem on the peripheral arms
and legs, for example, they shutdown, bringing all the blood to
the core.
And there's quite a few thingsthat happened to the body.
So again, it's once you start tobecome aware of this, you can
use this and start to nudge yourtraining into the next level.
But yeah, you can't beat it.
(35:31):
That's my biggest piece ofadvice.
Cold water train every day.
It's a fantastic.
James (35:36):
It looks like I'm starting now.
rob (35:37):
Yeah.
Life
James (35:40):
changing.
The word authenticity is thrownaround there's no tomorrow.
It's become a new buzzword.
How can, what is authenticityand how can men shift or how can
people shift into moreconfidence and authenticity?
rob (35:57):
Okay yeah, this is What is one of my sort of fundamental
principles and going back intomy career what I noticed was
there was lots of men generallylike new, like more recent sort
of generations who, Alwaysgravitate, sorry, gravitate
towards the, what I call thewolf pack, the sort of popular
(36:18):
crowd and that's how they gothrough life.
I've always, I don't know, I'vealways found myself like, I
consider myself an outsider.
So I would disagree with thegroup.
And sometimes I'd go with thegroup, but sometimes I'd really
disagree with the group.
And then you feel a little bitWhat's the word I'm looking for?
You're like, like an outsider.
(36:39):
But that decision has alwayslanded me in the right place and
helped me succeed.
So I've really embraced myauthenticity from a an early age
in my, both my careers in the,in my corporate world and the
military world.
So for me, authenticity isfirstly, it leads to success in
every aspect of your life, beingunapologetically authentic.
(37:02):
Also, it's the most terrifyingthing ever as well.
So speaking, unfiltered, doingif you do business online, like
Facebook lives and LinkedInlives, things like that, because
there's no rehearsal.
What comes out of your mouth isyou.
And However, when there was astudy done recently, I think it
was in Europe and they measuredfrequencies come out of the
(37:25):
body.
I always thought like love andgratitude are the most powerful
frequency that humans can emit,but it's not authenticity is
being measured to be the mostpowerful frequency.
So when we look around us and welook on social media whether it
be people we really dislike onsocial media or people we really
resonate with.
(37:46):
For some reason, these peopleshow up on our feed, and these
people are really successful.
They're really popular, becausethey're unapologetically, sorry,
authentic.
And authenticity attractspeople.
Depending on what you feel wantsto attract people, ultimately,
we want to attract the rightpeople.
If we walk through our lifewearing a mask, we're going to
(38:08):
attract the wrong people,because those people are going
to be attracted to the wrongpeople.
Self, so this mask, if we removethe mask and we shine our light,
we are unapologeticallyauthentic.
We're going to start to attractthe right people into our lives
and therefore get going with ourpath and our purpose.
So I think authenticity comesfrom again, the things I've
(38:30):
talked about reducing thosefluctuations of the mind.
So doing your breath work, doingyour meditation, doing your
reflection.
Figuring out what you want tolet go.
Surround yourself by inspiringcompany.
And you can really have a feelof who you are, what fills you
up, what what brings joy.
And then when you start to livethat life, people will start to
recognize that in you and itbecomes contagious.
(38:52):
So I think it's one of the mostpowerful principles that any man
can do can do.
And again, it leads to, in myexperience, it leads to success
in every aspect of your life.
James (39:03):
Yeah, it's we've got mutual friends.
Shakti Sundari, and in theepisode we're talking about
relationships, we talked abouthow if you bring back your
energy into your body, as I callit, your frame, and you do what
you need to do, so followingyour purpose, dancing like
(39:26):
there's nobody watching, goingout and doing things that you
enjoy, you will naturally, as Isaid, you will naturally attract
The right people to you, butalso there's an attraction
quality within authenticity andI find it it's, as you said,
it's, it can be, it's very hardsometimes to be authentic
(39:48):
because we're programmed to wantto fit in with everybody.
But once you start to be you,and yes, you might annoy a few
people, you start to live.
You literally, you start to livewithin yourself.
There's a sense that when youstart to be your authentic self,
you get more guidance comethrough, you'll find that more
(40:10):
people who are meant to be inyour life will gravitate towards
you, there'll be moreopportunities that are meant for
you that will come into yourlife as well.
And so I feel like authenticity.
is a big thing.
So how can people start tobecome more authentic?
And how can they, obviously, howcan they stop or not stop?
(40:32):
How can they change from wantingeverybody to like them to just
be themselves?
rob (40:38):
Yeah, it's a really good point.
Again, bring it back to theleadership.
Again, all of my, when I lookback, I'm preparing for this
discussion.
I was reflecting on some of themost incredible leaders I've
ever had.
And the top of the list isauthenticity, the massive
(40:58):
authenticity, which sometimesmakes them unpopular, but
they've led well and they'vesucceeded.
And ultimately.
After being unpopular, theindividuals who didn't.
like their decisions, realizethat I, yeah, they made the best
decisions for the team.
So again, it comes back to thiswhat, why aren't we authentic?
Cause we fear fear a few thingsfor being ourselves.
(41:22):
Coming back to one of the, myoriginal points on these, the
five causes of all humansuffering.
So anything we suffer as a humancan be put into these five
buckets.
The first one is ignorance ofour existence, how things works.
The next one is egoism.
So this idea of ourself or howwe should be performing.
There's a few individuals I'vemet in the corporate world who
(41:44):
really had lots of insecurities,and they were trying to figure
out how they fit in theorganization of the world as a
man, for example.
And this tarnished their abilityto be authentic when actually if
you show a little bit ofvulnerability or show your team
in a leadership context that youdon't have all the answers but
(42:07):
that's what you guys are foryou.
You guys are all the experts.
It's my job to get the best outof you and to lead you and help
you and solve your problems asyour leader.
If you can open up and be, havethe strength and the courage to
do that and be authentic.
This will be like incrediblyattractive to all of your
(42:27):
people.
But in order to do that, it'sunderstanding that the ego
exists and actually everythingchanges.
Your experiences change you allthe time.
So nothing's permanent.
So constantly releasing thisfixed idea of yourself.
The next cause of humansuffering is attachment.
So this attachment toExpectations of others,
(42:48):
attachment to the other peopleliking us.
So doing things to be liked.
If we lose this, if we actauthentic, authentically knowing
that we are just doing the rightthing.
We're not expecting anythingback.
We lose this attachment.
The next one is aversion.
So aversion to displeasure.
So if we don't like something'sa little bit icky, we don't like
(43:10):
to public speak.
We don't like to tell someonethat they're not performing
well.
We don't like to upset people.
So if we get, if we lose theseaversions and then finally it's
fear of something coming to anend.
So fear of death, fear ofmortality.
Or fear of I don't know, acareer.
So these five causes of humansuffering, if we can use our
(43:32):
tools, our breath work, ourmeditation, our cold water
training, all of these tools toloosen up all of these problems
with the mind, We suddenly getrid of all of the, all the
obstacles.
And then we just live throughour authenticity.
There's no questions.
Obviously we're human beings,we're constantly battling with
this, but we're no longer havingthese massive blockers to
(43:55):
prevent us saying that thingthat we feel like we should say,
or we want to say, but we don'tthink we should because we will
become unpopular, or interveningor doing the right thing.
So once we become a master of itin a world using these these
tools, we can then, we can justrelease, we can just open to the
(44:15):
world.
So yeah really important.
But it starts with you.
You can't be an effective leaderif you can't lead yourself.
James (44:22):
You said attachment.
I was like, yeah, no, but sogive me an example.
At the moment I've got this car,10 years old and I am attached
to the car.
Yeah, I know it needs to gobecause it's become problem
after problem.
So I was thinking, when you weresaying about different
techniques, you could also use,as we've mentioned, I think
(44:43):
quite a few times, journaling,but almost going deeper inside
ourselves and asking ourselves,what is it that's really holding
us back to do with thisattachment?
So for me, with the car, I thinkit's the fact that I would fear
not getting a good, a car asgood as that.
Or maybe the other car might notwork, or the other car might be
(45:05):
too expensive to run.
And so there's almost going intothese ideas, these questions
that we might have, all thesedifferent parts holding us into
this attachment, and going a bitdeeper into that, and then a
little bit deeper into that, andeventually you will come up,
come to this core idea of whatthe attachment's all about.
(45:28):
And then it's when you canchange, you can start to turn it
around and it could be down.
I think it could be down tobeliefs.
So then you can turn the beliefaround.
It could be down to your innerchild, not feeling safe, then
you can bring a little bit ofsafety in and things like that.
rob (45:48):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think sometimes so a reallygood point about do have to make
decisions all of the time.
So there's a couple of things.
Firstly Are you in the bestplace, the best state to make
that decision?
A lot of people aren'tnecessarily they're making
decision from a stress response.
So firstly it's go away and sortout your state and then Go back
(46:10):
to that decision and once youknow that you're in a really
good place What i'm talkingabout do your breath work do a
meditation Then sit down withyour journal and then go through
the problem go through thedecision you need to make You
can't really get From it or docold war strain it do can't
really get to a better state tomake that decision from After
that when you do make thatdecision It's just owning that
decision and then walking awayfrom it Because the last thing
(46:32):
we want is guilt and doubt andall those different things So
it's just again come back fromthat, you know as we're talking
to men So being that superiorawakened man where you make that
decision and you own it and thenjust walk forward and don't look
back
James (46:47):
Like that What, so in regards to people following
their purpose, I always findclarity is the key.
Because if you have a bit ofclarity, you have this idea of
the steps that you need to take.
So what daily habits orexercises can people start to do
(47:07):
to start to get clarity in whatthey need to do?
rob (47:12):
So firstly, it's.
We need to build, we need tobuild a, an ongoing practice
within yoga is called sadhana.
Sadhana is a daily practice,something we do every day to
access spiritual enlightenmentor enlightenment or just clarity
depending what you believe in.
For me personally, so everyone'sdifferent.
I'm a single dad.
I have my children 50 percent ofthe time.
(47:33):
So I've got to deal with, I'm ahouseholder, so I haven't got
the luxury to, spend 10 hours atthe gym.
So I get up early, get up beforemy children.
I spend a few minutes just toreflect.
I listen when I first wake up, Ilisten.
What have I been dreaming of?
What comes to me straight away?
And if anything comes to me,I'll write it down.
If it doesn't, then I take itthrough to my practice.
(47:55):
I come downstairs and I do mybreath work.
Okay, so it's yoga pranayama.
I've got my specific method.
I go through that and then I gointo a meditation.
Sometimes I feel it in me to do40 minutes.
Sometimes it's 20 minutes.
And I do this meditation.
I get to that point, and I, thisis where I have my most clarity.
(48:17):
I pull out my journal and Iwrite down, sometimes it's a
sentence, sometimes it might bea word.
Sometimes it's two or threepages.
I then go and do my I get mywake my children up.
I have my cold shower.
I do, I've got another practiceI do.
And then later on.
In the day if I feel into it Iteach yoga breath work,
meditation and postures.
(48:38):
So I get lots of movement inanyway.
But but I also, before I go tobed, I make sure that I've got a
little bit of time before I goto sleep and I journal.
And the more you do this, itstarts to, you start to go
deeper.
So it's keeping things simple,whatever works for you in order
to access that clarity.
This might be just going for awalk but making sure that you
(49:00):
aren't, ultimately what you'retrying to do is quieten the
mind.
So whatever you can do toquieten the mind.
For me, yoga is the best thingI've ever found.
And I really get to that pointwhere I can make better
decisions.
One of the things I I did withmy previous company, we do,
which I still do now on aMonday, we do a lunchtime brief.
(49:21):
So you can start your day andyou get your emails and you get
all your bits and pieces and youstart hitting your to do list,
but you get, get to thelunchtime and you've got so much
to do.
You're trying to work out whatdo I use the rest of the
afternoon for?
So it's really important toagain, access that clarity so
you can make better decisions.
So I do it like a 20 minute.
(49:42):
dynamic breath work practice ona Monday at 12, which is
brilliant.
And all my people, it justcompletely transforms their day
and their week.
And the more often you do that'syour go to that becomes a habit.
So rather think I'm going to getanother coffee, which actually
speeds life up.
You can actually go and slowthings down and access that
(50:04):
clarity for the same amount oftime.
And then you can you can makebetter decisions in your life,
your career your family life,etc.
James (50:12):
Thank you very much, Rob.
Can you just tell us lastly,what is it that you do?
What can you offer people?
What and how can people get incontact?
rob (50:20):
Okay so what I offer, so I've created a business called
Thrive Instinct, and this isabout finding your spark and
your true purpose in order to.
an optimal human experience.
So life is about experience.
So we want to experience itfully.
Okay.
So that's fine tuning ourinstrument to really, like I
say, perform well in, in theorchestra of life.
(50:42):
So I offer an online platform.
It's an online portal.
I deliver.
breath training, postures,coaching meditation and on
demand resources.
I also offer retreats.
So this is mixed retreats in amastery retreat.
I do an awakened man retreatspecifically for men and also a
couple's retreat forreconnection.
(51:04):
I'll do that with my partner.
One to one coaching and I have aprogram called inner mastery
mentorship, which is basicallytrying to unlock some of this
stuff and actually helping youto empower you with the tools.
So you no longer need me.
You can actually do this all byyourself.
So my website iswww.thriveinstinct.co uk.
(51:27):
You can reach out to me fromthere and yeah, and look, find
my social media and then let meknow if you wanna chat more.
And I'll be really reallypleased to help.
In this week's episode, we talkabout why men feel lost and
disconnected.
How to shift from doubt andhesitation to confident decision
making.
How the power of breath work andcold water exposure can help to
build practices of resilience,mental clarity and inner
strength.
And lessons from militaryleadership, how discipline, self
(00:23):
awareness and emotional masterycan shape strong leaders.
Welcome to Man (00:29):
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.
(00:50):
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 (01:07):
Hello, Rob.
Tell me about yourself.
rob (01:11):
Hi, James.
So I grew up in the Midlands.
I left school at the age of 16and I joined the Royal Marines a
few months after my leavingschool after my exams.
So I spent the next year in theRoyal Marines and then I went on
to another part of the military.
And lead organization.
I spent the following 15 yearsthere.
(01:31):
So yes, but most of my adultlife in in the military and I
left at the age of 40.
So my career naturally came toan end and towards the end of my
career.
I through my own personaljourney, I got really deep into
holistic healing humanperformance.
And yeah, so I was moved intothat area into sort of the
(01:51):
corporate world.
I had a short stint working fora defense company building
equipment for the military, butI soon found myself in a
corporate company focusing onhuman performance and training.
Just after that and morerecently I've just launched my
own business.
Where I've really found my pathand I'm helping people basically
by some of the lessons I'velearned along my career.
(02:12):
So yeah, so that's where I amtoday.
James (02:15):
I remember the other day we had a discussion about, a
quick discussion, and youmentioned that you went to
school within probably 20minutes of where I went to
school, in Stafford.
rob (02:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
So when I saw your your biowhere you were from, yeah, just
really immediately took me backto to back to school days.
It's interesting because I'dforgotten and I'd left school at
16 and hadn't really gone backmuch.
So yeah, it immediately took meback to that place, so it was
quite a nice thing to see.
James (02:42):
A small world.
So we've got regards to thearmy.
What kind of lessons did youlearn that can really help to
shape leaders and to really helpus to drive towards purpose?
rob (02:55):
Yeah, so throughout my career, I operated in or I
worked in the conventionalmilitary and also unconventional
military.
So I guess some of the lessonsthat I learned on reflection,
and this also Corporate world isthe best leaders I saw were the
ones who'd basically done thework on themselves, either
(03:20):
knowingly or unknowingly, andthey had the lowest egos.
And they were the mostauthentic.
So I reflect on this often insome of the training that I do
with my coaching clients.
And the more you can releaseyour stuff, this insecurity, the
imposter syndrome the need to belike high status amongst your
(03:44):
peers, the more you can get ridof all that crap.
The more you can start to focuson being a better leader and
Achieving the goal of achievingthe mission for the good of your
people.
Also, another really greatrealization was that, and I
experienced this myself.
It's very difficult to do, butmaking the right decision rather
(04:07):
than the popular decision.
And again, this comes from beingvery secure in yourself, having
done all of the work, as a man,and and therefore you can make
these clear decisions based onThe right thing, or I use my
intuition quite often, ratherthan the shoulds because you're
worried about what people maythink, etc.
So those are some really biglessons that I carry forward and
(04:29):
I reflect on pretty much daily.
James (04:32):
The last 10 years I've been on this personal and
spiritual development journey,and it's almost become an
obsession.
What I've noticed is how calm Iam, how much I trust my
intuition.
I remember being in arelationship, one of my first
relationships, and we were goingto buy a house together, but I
(04:55):
knew it, deep down, I knew itwas wrong, but I carried on with
it anyway.
Luckily, the relationship ended,and I learnt the lesson.
But, from ever since then, I'vefocused on really allowing
myself to trust my intuition ona deep level.
Even if it's unpopular.
(05:15):
But then again, the source ofsituations where you almost get
into this, into your mind, andyour mind tends to lead rather
than your heart.
So how can people shift from themind into their heart to make
decisions?
rob (05:32):
Okay, yeah, it's a really good question.
So firstly it's understandinghow it all works.
So within the system, the innermastery method that I teach, we
focus, this comes from ancientwisdom in ancient traditional
yoga.
So there are five causes ofhuman suffering.
The first one is ignorance.
So if you don't understand howYour mind works and your body
(05:54):
works, then you know you're in alosing battle.
So the only way to do that is toreally understand this, do the
work gain the wisdom and thenyou can elevate and you're
effectively seeing a newhorizon.
So how to put that intopractical terms.
So by doing a daily practice ofgetting away from or going
beyond your five senses.
(06:15):
So what I do every day.
I'm going too much into myroutine.
I do my yoga pranayama, soeffectively breath work, but
it's a deeper sense of breathwork because we're using energy
manipulation.
So we do our pranayama, doingour meditation.
And what you can do, you canstart to quieten the mind.
This is the purpose of yoga andmany other techniques.
(06:35):
You quieten the fluctuations ofthe mind, and once you quieten
the fluctuations of the mind,then you have this incredible
realization.
You can access this.
You can make this innerconnection.
You can start to get these realauthentic ideas and wisdom
coming through despite all ofthe fluctuations of the mind,
all of these little voicestelling you, you should do this,
you shouldn't do that.
(06:55):
So it's creating this theseconditions for yourself by your
daily practice, whatever you do.
I use my method to create thispiece, this inner piece that you
can protect.
And that's where you get yourwisdom from.
And what happens in this respectis, or when you apply this, is
you no longer go seeking foradvice or asking questions.
(07:16):
You've got everything you needinside.
So you stop.
Looking externally for theanswers, you can actually access
these answers from inside you.
This is what I help my clientswith.
And it's groundbreaking when youget this realization, but it all
starts with shining a light onthis stuff.
So getting rid of this ignoranceof how things work.
James (07:36):
I can understand that.
I like to go outside barefootfirst thing in the morning and
literally allow myself to groundbecause the world's just full of
moments on the news and what'sgoing on around the world.
There's so much informationcoming in and our minds are
racing around.
It's very hard to figure out theright information with what
(07:59):
everything that's going on.
And it's this idea that once youstart to.
Connect into that, into thequietness, into the wisdom, it
almost becomes your next step.
And then the next step, and thenext step, and the next step.
With regards to successful men,quite often there's a sense that
(08:22):
people should I say, men andwomen, there's this idea that a
lot of them look for fulfillmentoutside themselves, whether
that's cars, houses, money.
How can, why do men, why do theyfeel so unfulfilled inside
there?
rob (08:41):
Yeah yeah, again, brilliant one.
I talk about this on most treatsa lot.
We start off with a bigquestion, what is the, what
would success look like if wewere to put a a mission
statement on life, and it'scomes down to fulfillment,
meaningful connections and apositive contribution or
meaningful contribution to theworld.
So it's trying to measure whatyour fulfillment is or create
(09:04):
the the gauge on what yourfulfillment is.
And when you really strip itdown, when you really.
break down these things with anindividual, you work out that
actually it's about what reallyfills you up.
What what gives you, what fillsyou with joy?
I've, I'm very lucky in theplace I've landed now where I
(09:25):
don't feel like I work anymore.
I feel like I'm just fulfillingmy purpose.
And when you get to that, whatyou'll find is the universe
delivers everything you need toget there.
My, my mantra is need less andgive more.
So, flashy cars.
If you need a flashy car, thenthat's absolutely fine.
But it's when we start to strivefor excess we the sooner we get
(09:49):
to fulfilling our needs, thesooner we can get to giving
more, I will say more of apurpose and.
The more we can tread lightly onthis world, the sooner we can
get to a point where we'rehaving something to give back.
So working out what fulfills youlike what lights you up what
you, everyone knows what I'mtalking about.
When you get to that point,you've delivered good hard days
(10:11):
work or you've helped someonethat really lights you up.
So it's again, this comes backto the really diving into this
and reflecting on What yourneeds are and then what your
desires are and then scalingthem back.
If there's any excess in that,
James (10:27):
One thing that I've come to realize is that when it comes
to purpose direction, whateveryou want to call it, quite
often, self doubt, overwhelm,procrastination, feeling lost
kicks in.
What can people do or what's thefirst step that people can do in
(10:49):
order to really start to stepinto this purpose or step into
this, into their direction thatthey're meant to go in?
rob (10:59):
Yeah, so I think if self doubt and the fear cycle which
is common and again, it's athing that happens to all
humans.
So the way I personally breakthis cycle is.
I work from home often dealingwith clients online, unless I'm
running retreats and workshops.
So sometimes I can get into thisstuck cycle of not moving
forward, going around.
(11:19):
So the best, the first thing todo is to break that cycle.
So taking yourself off the X oroff the mark, okay, so out of
the the environment, whether itbe a retreat, whether it be just
a walk or getting outside, andthen you can start to reflect.
And ultimately When we doubtourselves I teach within my
method, I've got somethingcalled the Thrival Principles.
(11:41):
And one of these principles istrust, trusting yourself.
This is something that wereally, we're always working at.
We'll never get, 10 out of 10.
So we're always working on thiselement.
And the best way to do this is,to start to challenge yourself.
So seeking discomfort every day.
So that's not, so I use coldwater for this.
I've been doing cold watertraining every day.
(12:03):
Haven't missed a day for overfour years now.
And so that's one very easymedium to, to access this level
of discomfort.
And the more you do that, youbuild this incredible sense of
confidence and self trust.
And this fear of discomfortstarts to melt away.
And again, this through crossadaption, this.
Transfers into our life not onlycold water training, but if you
(12:26):
have a fear of public speakingthe thing that you really think
you should do, but you don'twant to do, nudge your edges,
just go for it and see whathappens.
Because.
We start to become moreconfident, especially as men, as
we're trying to find ourposition in this dynamic world,
which is crazy now.
But we can still do that bynudging our edges and this will
(12:46):
massively help us adapt to everyother aspect of our life.
James (12:51):
You know what, cold showers have come up twice now.
It's obviously, so I used to docold showers quite a bit, and
used to do cold baths.
I found submerging myself in acold bath quite liberating
because yes, the first 10seconds, you're like, oh, but
then you, I find myself droppinginto my body a lot when I'm in
the cold bath, but it's come uptwice.
(13:13):
So I reckon I need to restartit.
Definitely.
Definitely.
So it's also, it's.
From my own perspective, I'vebeen in business since 2018, but
I've it's been, my business hasbeen stagnant, probably for the
last since then.
So I've never really progressedand it's more I find myself
(13:33):
usually when I don't know what Ineed to do.
So if I don't have a clearenough plan, a clear enough way
forward, I either, Get bored,because I'm trying to figure out
what to do, or I find myselfgetting overwhelmed or
(13:53):
procrastinating, so I might goand watch a film, I might go and
do something else like washingor general chores in the house,
and so that's, obviously it'sbeen a reoccurring pattern, but
then I find that once youidentify the pattern, And you
are able then to look a littlebit deeper using self
development, personal growth tolook a bit deeper into it and
(14:16):
why it's happening.
Quite often underneath I findit's just like a scared little
part of ourselves.
rob (14:24):
Yeah, I think so coming from the military, and some of
the areas in the military Iworked in were some of the most
elite teams.
One thing I do miss from leavingthe military is not having this
team around me, people tochallenge me and within the
organizations I worked in wenever patted each other on the
back.
Because we're always striving tobe better and to perform higher.
(14:49):
So that's one thing I reallymiss.
I've got loved ones around mewho are very kind.
My partner, she's absolutelyamazing.
And she challenges me, helps me,but not to that level.
So I think it's reallyimportant.
And specifically as men, aswe're talking about on this
podcast I think men need.
Really strong peers and coachesand mentors to really lift them.
(15:12):
So I think you can do your ownplanning, but if no one's
holding you to account, you canslip into that cycle.
Find, I call this within my, themethod that I teach and the
method my teacher passed down tome.
We've got an element called, ora principle called inspiring
company.
So surround yourself withinspiring company.
So those who are where you wantto get to as opposed to someone
(15:36):
who isn't where you want to getto.
Someone who's done the work.
They've walked your path andthey can pull you forward.
So they're inspiring youonwards.
And it's identifying people,those around you that can be a
coach.
It can be a friend, it can be acolleague, someone who will hold
you to account on your things.
So make your plan, which is thefirst step, but then you need
(15:57):
this accountability.
So there's only so much we cando by ourselves, but.
If you're working on your ownlike you and I it's really
important to have these peoplewho you can check in with and of
course you can do the same forthem.
So that's a great tip andsomething that I've been I've
been really really hard over onfor the last sort of few years.
James (16:17):
Yeah, so it's talked about a lot by actually a lot of
successful people having theright people around you.
And in fact, I was at theprofessional speaking
association the other day, andthey were talking, the guy who
was speaking, he was talkingabout not necessarily having
also a team to push you forwardregards to business and work or
(16:37):
purpose, but also having awellbeing team around you,
somebody who you can chat to ifyou.
Need but it's it had it inlevels.
So it was 8, 9 and 10.
So people who was always there,you could literally call upon to
support you.
It's quite often you can havefriends, but you might not
(16:59):
interrupt your friends veryoften.
But it's the really goodfriends.
The ones who are going tochallenge you.
And not say, oh, you're good,you're fine, you'll do it.
You need somebody to challengeyou.
And I found that with coaches aswell.
I found certain business coachesover the years that I've had.
I found that they give you ideasand stuff, but they don't hold
(17:20):
you accountable.
So you need somebody who's goingto hold you accountable and ask
the hard questions.
Why didn't you get it done?
And even probably going a littlebit deeper, what's actually
stopping you?
Which parts of you are stoppingyou from progressing?
rob (17:37):
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
You touched on another, at apoint with regards to that
inspiring company I talkedabout.
It's like you said, having thatthe individuals, the friends or
the coaches, people are gonna bequite hard on you to really
nudge your edges.
But sometimes you want a softer.
Response.
And again, it's trying to havethat.
Also I've effectively got a a adiagram.
(17:58):
So it's me in the middle.
And one of the things Ivisualize was, okay, so if I
have a problem with, I, if Ihave a problem with business,
who could I go to?
So I've got my business person.
I've got my spiritual person.
I've got my digital courseperson.
I've got my partner for, forlove and and compassion.
So having these go to people,but you have to be able to give
(18:22):
them value as well.
So making sure that, there'sthis energy exchange.
So I think that's reallyimportant.
Knowing who to ask when you havethat specific question pop up.
James (18:31):
What I'm finding at the moment, what I'm finding at the
moment is AI.
So obviously AI is never goingto replace coaches, but there's
a program we're doing at themoment and there's different AI
bots being made for differentpurposes.
(18:53):
Obviously, A.
I.
Uses the whole of the Internetto collaborate information
together.
So if you're if you perhapscan't afford a coach, I find
that having a I actually almostgives you a helping hand with
regards to a coach.
rob (19:11):
Yeah I, yeah I've, yeah I've talked about this quite a
lot actually in my industry withmy sort of peers.
I, yes, absolutely a reallyincredible tool.
And I think it's, I usedifferent tools for different
things within my business.
The one thing I do that do, doespop up, I've been running
retreats now for over fouryears.
I've trained about 400 servicemen and women in, in recovery.
(19:35):
And the thing that AI can'treplace is this human
connection.
This sense of, this tribal feel.
And I think this is reallyimportant with men as well.
Men coming together and beingable to speak openly and talk
through some of this stuff.
With this struggle that's goingon in the world.
I'm going to talk about politicswith, With, what this toxic mix
masculinity and where menconfine themselves in this in
(19:59):
this sort of um, this era, ifyou like I think it's really
important that we come togetheroften as human beings.
And I think when we go forward,I think when you look at
business, I think businessesthat are going to be successful
going forward are the ones thatare going to bring connection
and community.
James (20:18):
Yeah, I can agree with that.
As I mentioned before westarted, I do a lot of dance.
And so you have the dancecommunity and you see the same
faces and you are able toliterally, even though during
this dance event, there's nospeaking, you're there in your
body, in your energy aroundthese people and you're able to
interact.
And it's that sense of Dancingand moving around.
(20:44):
And one thing I've beenchallenging myself to do more of
is to interact more with people,to dance with the, with other
people.
So one thing I'm great at isdancing on my own, in my own
space.
But I'm pushing myself by doing,I think it's, dance
improvisation, where literallyyou are with a partner and
(21:05):
obviously there's no speaking.
You are moving with your partnerto music.
not in any set routine, but howyour body or how the connection
between you wants to move.
And it's a sense of a number ofa couple of weeks ago, we were
doing a few of these differentmoves you can do while you're
dancing.
(21:25):
And I was able to start toincorporate some of these dance
moves, some of the, some ofthese movements into the actual
body movement.
So there's one where literallyyou can, one person comes onto
your hips and they almost spinthem around 180 degrees, and I
was able to incorporate thatinto the dance, and it's quite,
(21:48):
it's, when it happens in thatmoment, It feels good.
So there was no prep into the,Oh yeah, I'm going to do this
dance move.
I'm going to incorporate it.
But that again, that comes downto human connection and being
able to connect to that personon a deep level.
rob (22:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think I think the great thingabout humans is, aside from AI,
is You can actually get reallytriggered by other people.
We see this in relationships allof the time.
I was married for 17 years.
To an amazing woman.
She's phenomenal.
Had two amazing children.
And she was at home lookingafter them while I was at work.
(22:29):
I came home quite often, but.
There's a period in my careerwhere I was away quite a lot and
not very safe places.
So she's very worried about me.
When we eventually, when Ieventually retired from the
military when I was 40, ourmarriage just broke down.
And it's just one of thosethings we had to, but we both
accepted it and we both amicablydivorced, luckily, I'm very
(22:49):
grateful for that.
So amazing woman, amazingmother.
And after that, I thought herewe go.
I can meet people.
It's very new to me.
And yeah and I had variousfriends and a few relationships
and a few of them were verytriggering to me.
And and yeah, and it was, I wastrying to work out what happened
(23:09):
and.
When I reflect, I do a lot ofreflection, I do a lot of
journey.
That's how I I set my compassreally for going forward.
What I find was, what I foundwas, there was these patterns
that had formed and everyinteraction, whether it be just
as, a conversation online withsomeone I ever actually met,
there was a lesson from each ofthose interactions.
Which helped me to developmyself, to grow, to let go to
(23:32):
refine myself for when I meetthe one which I've met now.
And I'm, I've got all of thisI've got rid of all the crap
basically.
And I've learned a lot aboutmyself.
So I do feel that there's amassive requirement or need to
have as many human interactionsas possible in order to grow.
And we learn a lot aboutourselves from how we.
(23:53):
React to other people becauseall of these, we can have lots
of disagreements, not see eye toeye.
So it's how we conduct ourselvesin those situations around how
we react to respond to others.
So yeah, I don't think that'sgoing to be going away or being
replaced by AI anytime soon.
James (24:08):
A perfect example for myself is, at this moment in
time, certain people in thepolitics arena around the world.
I can feel myself gettingtriggered by it all.
But one thing I've come torealize the other day was that
there's a lot of hatred for someof these people.
It's almost okay, there's thishatred that I hate and I'm
(24:29):
projecting it out.
How can I bring that back tomyself in order to start to
process what I hate aboutmyself?
Because I feel what we projectout is quite often what we feel
about ourselves.
So if we have this hatred forsomebody, then we need to turn
(24:50):
that around and look at whichparts of ourselves do we
actually hate and how can westart to bring this part that we
hate and accept it for what itis and start to love that part
of ourselves.
rob (25:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
I resonate with what you'resaying with everything that's
going on.
The other thing is react to whatwe're exposed to.
So the information we have andI've have several friends on
social media and they'restarting to share some of the
things that are going on at themoment.
I've got my own personal views,but that's based on my
experience and my, my, theinformation I'm provided.
(25:23):
And I find myself trying toprivate message them and say
have you considered this?
But then, It all comes down towe, we react or respond to, what
we've been delivered in front ofus.
And generally human beings arealways doing their best, they're
trying to have good intentions.
So I try to, firstly, I try tonot get involved in these kinds
(25:46):
of politics, but yeah, like yousay, How we react, it's a mirror
on what's going on with us.
And again, with the benefit ofdoing reflection, doing
breathwork, meditation, and thenreflection, we can start to
notice these things about us.
And then we can start to dosomething about it and we can
fine tune our instrument inorder to, play better in the
(26:09):
orchestra of life.
So yeah, I think it's I welcomesome of these triggering events
or these experiences because ithelps me to really understand
more about myself.
James (26:21):
Yeah, definitely.
And I think as well, once youstart to work through these
triggers, we can, you can startto love those parts.
And it also then means thatyou're then projecting out love.
So at this moment in time,there's so much going on with
anger and hatred and all thatkind of stuff.
And the world's never been asdivided as it is now.
(26:41):
Thinking about it the other day,I don't want to add to this
divide.
Yes, there's lessons to belearned, and there's part to me
that I need to accept aboutmyself, but overall, I want to
be sending out love.
I don't want to be the part thatsends out hatred.
I want to be part, I want to bethe person that sends out love.
And then the more of us that wecan help to an effect in that
(27:03):
way, the more it's going tospread.
And then that's the way I thinkthe world's going to change.
rob (27:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
It hit the nail on the head.
One of my thrival principles atthe bottom is cultivate love
daily as opposed to fear.
And in, in yoga, there's a oneof the yamas, which is for the
listeners, it's the eight limbsof yoga.
The first one is the yama, whichis and the first one of that is
ahimsa.
It's a principle of nonviolence.
So this is nonviolence in ourthoughts, our words and our
(27:31):
actions.
So again, so if you seesomething that Is directly
opposed to your beliefs thenit's trying to.
A superior man would be able toacknowledge that and seek to
understand that perspective andunderstand this person has been
presented with the informationand therefore they've drawn that
conclusion.
That's why they feel that way.
(27:53):
So generally they're, they'vegot good intentions, but they're
passionate.
It just happens to be opposed tothe view that you've deduced
from the information you've beengiven.
So once you can master, become amaster of the inner world, you
can start to.
Dissolve this feeling ofaggression or violent thought or
violent word towards thatperson.
You can just soften and changeit.
(28:14):
It's a little bit like asamurai.
I always use that analogy.
One of the organizations Ioperated in, we had to we had to
be able to look control ournervous system.
So if something triggered us, soone of our friends got shot or
someone's shooting at us,respond violently or get
triggered by that, then you willstart to make mistakes.
You have to really bring, youhave to look after your nervous
(28:36):
system, bring yourself back downto that parasympathetic.
So it's that constant battle.
If you see something that's notright rather than triggered, a
superior man can harness thatfear and turn it into something
more positive.
And like you say, cultivate thatsense of love or kindness and
compassion, which is all in thesame bucket.
Yeah.
James (28:57):
What kind of techniques can people use to calm down
their parasympathetic nervoussystem?
rob (29:02):
Yeah, so I always say to, to people in my trainings and my
courses, when you're in thatposition, the last thing you're
thinking about is, oh, I need todo my.
My parasympathetic nerve myvagus nerve breathing.
That's the last thing you do.
So if you can catch yourself andyou can be conscious of it, so
breathing in the belly,breathing in through the nose,
there's lots and lots ofdifferent strategies, different
(29:23):
breathing techniques.
So whatever works for you.
What I use is breathing in forsix seconds and then breathing
out for six seconds through thenose, deep into the belly and
doing that for several minutes.
However, because we can't catchourselves, the best way we can
combat this is to take oursympathetic nervous system to
the gym.
(29:44):
So taking our stress response tothe gym so we can practice very
strong dynamic breathing insafety so we can also get
emotional release from this.
But what we have, what happensis we can start to build stress
resilience.
Cold water training.
So anything that's uncomfortableto us.
We do that stimulates oursympathetic nervous system So
(30:06):
when we are in these situationswe get triggers You know road
rage or in the office orwhatever it may be We're more
chilled and you'll get to thepoint in your life where you
know, it's like the matrix justdodging bullets Nothing, nothing
really bothers you and peoplelike look at you Are you real?
Why are you so chilled out allof the time?
(30:27):
And it's because things on adifferent level.
And that's when, that's wherethis inner master really comes
in.
James (30:34):
Going back to the cold showers, I think, yeah,
definitely, if you go underneatha cold shower, your automatic
reaction for your body is, butif you can literally just stop
yourself and then just go, andit will be uncomfortable and it
will be hard, especiallyinitially.
And yeah, you can, as you say,you can just start off with.
(30:56):
10 seconds or 20 seconds andthen build it up.
But if you decide to go for thewhole challenge of a whole
minute and just roll with It'sit isn't this it almost like you
said facing that discomfort
rob (31:10):
Absolutely.
I think that there's lots ofways to approach cold.
I what my career in the militaryI've spent a lot of time in the
water in the arctic in all kindsof places around the world.
And yeah, and I You But eventhough I spent all that time in
the water, I never reallyunderstood or really ever really
mastered this ability, this coldwater training, if you like.
(31:32):
I used to jump in quite looseand not really know what I was
doing.
So what I, The way I do it nowand the way I teach in my
courses is it's very slow andyou're trying to get in there,
feel everything.
And through cold water shock iswhen you jump into cold water
and your body has this autonomicreaction or automatic reaction
to take a breath.
(31:53):
That's what's going to happenwith your nervous system when
you get into the cold water.
So the best thing to do is tostart off in control of your
breathing.
So focusing, nice deep breathsin through the nose, out through
the mouth, and use that as aguide rail into the cold.
And then when you're in thecold, keep state, we'll stay
with the breath.
And then when you get to the endof each exhale, just try and
soften, try and open a littlebit more, a little bit more.
(32:15):
And before you know it, you meltaway.
We go through these threephases.
Resistance, where you don'treally want to get in the cold.
Existence, where you're in thecold water, but you're
contracted.
And then Mergence, where youcompletely open, surrender, and
into the body.
And then that puts your nervoussystem to sleep.
You slip into theparasympathetic, and you can
just stay.
And that's what you describehere when you're in there for a
(32:37):
minute.
One of the in my career had anear drowning experience where I
was basically held down by somequite heavy equipment and I
thought I was going to die.
Initially I was trying to I wastrying to, try to sort myself
out.
Saved myself.
My, basically my mask had comeoff.
I was trying to put my mask backin, my dive mask, and then
something happened.
(32:57):
I, my parrot, my sympatheticnervous system kicked in and I
went fight or flight.
And before I knew it, I wastrying to swim and pull this
big, heavy equipment up to thesurface.
Now, I had no control of mynervous system at this point on
reflection when I thought aboutit.
Later on, if I'd have justcarried out a couple of
procedures, I could havereleased myself, and I've been
(33:18):
fine, but.
This didn't happen.
So after that.
I had night terrors for abouttwo years but after that I had
the opportunity to do a freediving course with an amazing
man who I later started workingwith many years later in my last
company.
And and basically he taught meto free dive.
And this is the, this is thebeginning to my yoga and breath
(33:39):
work journey.
I realized.
how incredible the breath is atcontrolling our, how we react.
And that was the start really.
And since then after that courseI could hold my breath for five
minutes.
And just by going through thoseprocesses it was amazing how he
can hack into the body.
And that was the start of myyoga journey.
So I, that's the thing I do mostof around the water.
I think the water is incrediblefor healing, but it's an
(34:02):
incredible way to To test ourdiscomfort or give or practice
our discomfort training.
James (34:09):
Yeah, when I did a bit of cold water swimming.
Probably about a couple of yearsago, and I would wear gloves and
boots, but I would go in mynormal shorts in January's
winter, and it was freezing, andI could feel the pain going
through my body, literally,because it was that cold, but
(34:31):
eventually, probably within two,three minutes, that pain
disappeared.
And that's a quite astoundingthing, is that you can have all
this pain, but then that pain isjust temporary, and then
suddenly it's just gone anddisappeared, and it's you can
just carry on for ages.
rob (34:48):
Yeah, and that's the, and that's also the risk with the
once the alarm Signals havegone.
You've got to rely on yourdiscipline.
So we there's a training zoneAnd then after the training
zone, that's the sort of thedeath zone I call it So it's
been really aware of it.
But yeah, you're totally right.
It's amazing We have this whenwe enter the water we have this
(35:10):
I think called the mammalianreflex which basically got the
periphery All our circulatorysystem on the peripheral arms
and legs, for example, they shutdown, bringing all the blood to
the core.
And there's quite a few thingsthat happened to the body.
So again, it's once you start tobecome aware of this, you can
use this and start to nudge yourtraining into the next level.
But yeah, you can't beat it.
(35:31):
That's my biggest piece ofadvice.
Cold water train every day.
It's a fantastic.
James (35:36):
It looks like I'm starting now.
rob (35:37):
Yeah.
Life
James (35:40):
changing.
The word authenticity is thrownaround there's no tomorrow.
It's become a new buzzword.
How can, what is authenticityand how can men shift or how can
people shift into moreconfidence and authenticity?
rob (35:57):
Okay yeah, this is What is one of my sort of fundamental
principles and going back intomy career what I noticed was
there was lots of men generallylike new, like more recent sort
of generations who, Alwaysgravitate, sorry, gravitate
towards the, what I call thewolf pack, the sort of popular
(36:18):
crowd and that's how they gothrough life.
I've always, I don't know, I'vealways found myself like, I
consider myself an outsider.
So I would disagree with thegroup.
And sometimes I'd go with thegroup, but sometimes I'd really
disagree with the group.
And then you feel a little bitWhat's the word I'm looking for?
You're like, like an outsider.
(36:39):
But that decision has alwayslanded me in the right place and
helped me succeed.
So I've really embraced myauthenticity from a an early age
in my, both my careers in the,in my corporate world and the
military world.
So for me, authenticity isfirstly, it leads to success in
every aspect of your life, beingunapologetically authentic.
(37:02):
Also, it's the most terrifyingthing ever as well.
So speaking, unfiltered, doingif you do business online, like
Facebook lives and LinkedInlives, things like that, because
there's no rehearsal.
What comes out of your mouth isyou.
And However, when there was astudy done recently, I think it
was in Europe and they measuredfrequencies come out of the
(37:25):
body.
I always thought like love andgratitude are the most powerful
frequency that humans can emit,but it's not authenticity is
being measured to be the mostpowerful frequency.
So when we look around us and welook on social media whether it
be people we really dislike onsocial media or people we really
resonate with.
(37:46):
For some reason, these peopleshow up on our feed, and these
people are really successful.
They're really popular, becausethey're unapologetically, sorry,
authentic.
And authenticity attractspeople.
Depending on what you feel wantsto attract people, ultimately,
we want to attract the rightpeople.
If we walk through our lifewearing a mask, we're going to
(38:08):
attract the wrong people,because those people are going
to be attracted to the wrongpeople.
Self, so this mask, if we removethe mask and we shine our light,
we are unapologeticallyauthentic.
We're going to start to attractthe right people into our lives
and therefore get going with ourpath and our purpose.
So I think authenticity comesfrom again, the things I've
(38:30):
talked about reducing thosefluctuations of the mind.
So doing your breath work, doingyour meditation, doing your
reflection.
Figuring out what you want tolet go.
Surround yourself by inspiringcompany.
And you can really have a feelof who you are, what fills you
up, what what brings joy.
And then when you start to livethat life, people will start to
recognize that in you and itbecomes contagious.
(38:52):
So I think it's one of the mostpowerful principles that any man
can do can do.
And again, it leads to, in myexperience, it leads to success
in every aspect of your life.
James (39:03):
Yeah, it's we've got mutual friends.
Shakti Sundari, and in theepisode we're talking about
relationships, we talked abouthow if you bring back your
energy into your body, as I callit, your frame, and you do what
you need to do, so followingyour purpose, dancing like
(39:26):
there's nobody watching, goingout and doing things that you
enjoy, you will naturally, as Isaid, you will naturally attract
The right people to you, butalso there's an attraction
quality within authenticity andI find it it's, as you said,
it's, it can be, it's very hardsometimes to be authentic
(39:48):
because we're programmed to wantto fit in with everybody.
But once you start to be you,and yes, you might annoy a few
people, you start to live.
You literally, you start to livewithin yourself.
There's a sense that when youstart to be your authentic self,
you get more guidance comethrough, you'll find that more
(40:10):
people who are meant to be inyour life will gravitate towards
you, there'll be moreopportunities that are meant for
you that will come into yourlife as well.
And so I feel like authenticity.
is a big thing.
So how can people start tobecome more authentic?
And how can they, obviously, howcan they stop or not stop?
(40:32):
How can they change from wantingeverybody to like them to just
be themselves?
rob (40:38):
Yeah, it's a really good point.
Again, bring it back to theleadership.
Again, all of my, when I lookback, I'm preparing for this
discussion.
I was reflecting on some of themost incredible leaders I've
ever had.
And the top of the list isauthenticity, the massive
(40:58):
authenticity, which sometimesmakes them unpopular, but
they've led well and they'vesucceeded.
And ultimately.
After being unpopular, theindividuals who didn't.
like their decisions, realizethat I, yeah, they made the best
decisions for the team.
So again, it comes back to thiswhat, why aren't we authentic?
Cause we fear fear a few thingsfor being ourselves.
(41:22):
Coming back to one of the, myoriginal points on these, the
five causes of all humansuffering.
So anything we suffer as a humancan be put into these five
buckets.
The first one is ignorance ofour existence, how things works.
The next one is egoism.
So this idea of ourself or howwe should be performing.
There's a few individuals I'vemet in the corporate world who
(41:44):
really had lots of insecurities,and they were trying to figure
out how they fit in theorganization of the world as a
man, for example.
And this tarnished their abilityto be authentic when actually if
you show a little bit ofvulnerability or show your team
in a leadership context that youdon't have all the answers but
(42:07):
that's what you guys are foryou.
You guys are all the experts.
It's my job to get the best outof you and to lead you and help
you and solve your problems asyour leader.
If you can open up and be, havethe strength and the courage to
do that and be authentic.
This will be like incrediblyattractive to all of your
(42:27):
people.
But in order to do that, it'sunderstanding that the ego
exists and actually everythingchanges.
Your experiences change you allthe time.
So nothing's permanent.
So constantly releasing thisfixed idea of yourself.
The next cause of humansuffering is attachment.
So this attachment toExpectations of others,
(42:48):
attachment to the other peopleliking us.
So doing things to be liked.
If we lose this, if we actauthentic, authentically knowing
that we are just doing the rightthing.
We're not expecting anythingback.
We lose this attachment.
The next one is aversion.
So aversion to displeasure.
So if we don't like something'sa little bit icky, we don't like
(43:10):
to public speak.
We don't like to tell someonethat they're not performing
well.
We don't like to upset people.
So if we get, if we lose theseaversions and then finally it's
fear of something coming to anend.
So fear of death, fear ofmortality.
Or fear of I don't know, acareer.
So these five causes of humansuffering, if we can use our
(43:32):
tools, our breath work, ourmeditation, our cold water
training, all of these tools toloosen up all of these problems
with the mind, We suddenly getrid of all of the, all the
obstacles.
And then we just live throughour authenticity.
There's no questions.
Obviously we're human beings,we're constantly battling with
this, but we're no longer havingthese massive blockers to
(43:55):
prevent us saying that thingthat we feel like we should say,
or we want to say, but we don'tthink we should because we will
become unpopular, or interveningor doing the right thing.
So once we become a master of itin a world using these these
tools, we can then, we can justrelease, we can just open to the
(44:15):
world.
So yeah really important.
But it starts with you.
You can't be an effective leaderif you can't lead yourself.
James (44:22):
You said attachment.
I was like, yeah, no, but sogive me an example.
At the moment I've got this car,10 years old and I am attached
to the car.
Yeah, I know it needs to gobecause it's become problem
after problem.
So I was thinking, when you weresaying about different
techniques, you could also use,as we've mentioned, I think
(44:43):
quite a few times, journaling,but almost going deeper inside
ourselves and asking ourselves,what is it that's really holding
us back to do with thisattachment?
So for me, with the car, I thinkit's the fact that I would fear
not getting a good, a car asgood as that.
Or maybe the other car might notwork, or the other car might be
(45:05):
too expensive to run.
And so there's almost going intothese ideas, these questions
that we might have, all thesedifferent parts holding us into
this attachment, and going a bitdeeper into that, and then a
little bit deeper into that, andeventually you will come up,
come to this core idea of whatthe attachment's all about.
(45:28):
And then it's when you canchange, you can start to turn it
around and it could be down.
I think it could be down tobeliefs.
So then you can turn the beliefaround.
It could be down to your innerchild, not feeling safe, then
you can bring a little bit ofsafety in and things like that.
rob (45:48):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think sometimes so a reallygood point about do have to make
decisions all of the time.
So there's a couple of things.
Firstly Are you in the bestplace, the best state to make
that decision?
A lot of people aren'tnecessarily they're making
decision from a stress response.
So firstly it's go away and sortout your state and then Go back
(46:10):
to that decision and once youknow that you're in a really
good place What i'm talkingabout do your breath work do a
meditation Then sit down withyour journal and then go through
the problem go through thedecision you need to make You
can't really get From it or docold war strain it do can't
really get to a better state tomake that decision from After
that when you do make thatdecision It's just owning that
decision and then walking awayfrom it Because the last thing
(46:32):
we want is guilt and doubt andall those different things So
it's just again come back fromthat, you know as we're talking
to men So being that superiorawakened man where you make that
decision and you own it and thenjust walk forward and don't look
back
James (46:47):
Like that What, so in regards to people following
their purpose, I always findclarity is the key.
Because if you have a bit ofclarity, you have this idea of
the steps that you need to take.
So what daily habits orexercises can people start to do
(47:07):
to start to get clarity in whatthey need to do?
rob (47:12):
So firstly, it's.
We need to build, we need tobuild a, an ongoing practice
within yoga is called sadhana.
Sadhana is a daily practice,something we do every day to
access spiritual enlightenmentor enlightenment or just clarity
depending what you believe in.
For me personally, so everyone'sdifferent.
I'm a single dad.
I have my children 50 percent ofthe time.
(47:33):
So I've got to deal with, I'm ahouseholder, so I haven't got
the luxury to, spend 10 hours atthe gym.
So I get up early, get up beforemy children.
I spend a few minutes just toreflect.
I listen when I first wake up, Ilisten.
What have I been dreaming of?
What comes to me straight away?
And if anything comes to me,I'll write it down.
If it doesn't, then I take itthrough to my practice.
(47:55):
I come downstairs and I do mybreath work.
Okay, so it's yoga pranayama.
I've got my specific method.
I go through that and then I gointo a meditation.
Sometimes I feel it in me to do40 minutes.
Sometimes it's 20 minutes.
And I do this meditation.
I get to that point, and I, thisis where I have my most clarity.
(48:17):
I pull out my journal and Iwrite down, sometimes it's a
sentence, sometimes it might bea word.
Sometimes it's two or threepages.
I then go and do my I get mywake my children up.
I have my cold shower.
I do, I've got another practiceI do.
And then later on.
In the day if I feel into it Iteach yoga breath work,
meditation and postures.
(48:38):
So I get lots of movement inanyway.
But but I also, before I go tobed, I make sure that I've got a
little bit of time before I goto sleep and I journal.
And the more you do this, itstarts to, you start to go
deeper.
So it's keeping things simple,whatever works for you in order
to access that clarity.
This might be just going for awalk but making sure that you
(49:00):
aren't, ultimately what you'retrying to do is quieten the
mind.
So whatever you can do toquieten the mind.
For me, yoga is the best thingI've ever found.
And I really get to that pointwhere I can make better
decisions.
One of the things I I did withmy previous company, we do,
which I still do now on aMonday, we do a lunchtime brief.
(49:21):
So you can start your day andyou get your emails and you get
all your bits and pieces and youstart hitting your to do list,
but you get, get to thelunchtime and you've got so much
to do.
You're trying to work out whatdo I use the rest of the
afternoon for?
So it's really important toagain, access that clarity so
you can make better decisions.
So I do it like a 20 minute.
(49:42):
dynamic breath work practice ona Monday at 12, which is
brilliant.
And all my people, it justcompletely transforms their day
and their week.
And the more often you do that'syour go to that becomes a habit.
So rather think I'm going to getanother coffee, which actually
speeds life up.
You can actually go and slowthings down and access that
(50:04):
clarity for the same amount oftime.
And then you can you can makebetter decisions in your life,
your career your family life,etc.
James (50:12):
Thank you very much, Rob.
Can you just tell us lastly,what is it that you do?
What can you offer people?
What and how can people get incontact?
rob (50:20):
Okay so what I offer, so I've created a business called
Thrive Instinct, and this isabout finding your spark and
your true purpose in order to.
an optimal human experience.
So life is about experience.
So we want to experience itfully.
Okay.
So that's fine tuning ourinstrument to really, like I
say, perform well in, in theorchestra of life.
(50:42):
So I offer an online platform.
It's an online portal.
I deliver.
breath training, postures,coaching meditation and on
demand resources.
I also offer retreats.
So this is mixed retreats in amastery retreat.
I do an awakened man retreatspecifically for men and also a
couple's retreat forreconnection.
(51:04):
I'll do that with my partner.
One to one coaching and I have aprogram called inner mastery
mentorship, which is basicallytrying to unlock some of this
stuff and actually helping youto empower you with the tools.
So you no longer need me.
You can actually do this all byyourself.
So my website iswww.thriveinstinct.co uk.
(51:27):
You can reach out to me fromthere and yeah, and look, find
my social media and then let meknow if you wanna chat more.
And I'll be really reallypleased to help.
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