The Detached podcast
Welcome to the podcast. This is a space where I get to vocalize my thoughts and dive deep into conversations with some truly remarkable individuals. It’s not about surface-level chit-chat—this is where we get into the real stuff. We talk about the things that matter: health, fitness, relationships, and the process of breaking free from the limitations we place on ourselves.
I don’t believe in small talk, because nothing meaningful ever comes from it. So, let's dig deep into the topics that can actually change your life. I want to bring you value, provoke your thinking, and help you see the world differently.
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Sophia
The Detached podcast
EP: 82 Luke Powell - Unveiling the Secrets of Resilience and Ambition
Luke shares his transformative journey from aspiring footballer to successful fitness entrepreneur, emphasizing how failure played a pivotal role in shaping his path. He discusses mental health, the importance of resilience, and the holistic approach behind his Shredfast principles.
• Importance of embracing failure for growth
• Impact of childhood on personal ambitions
• Navigating the transition from sports to entrepreneurship
• Mental health as an essential part of success
• Introduction of Shredfast principles for holistic health
• Insights on making decisions based on energy and intuition
• Value of self-reflection and daily rituals for maintaining well-being
• Lessons learned from experiences with the Wim Hof method
• Building a supportive community for personal growth
• Redefining relationships with success and setbacks
right, so luke how are you feeling today?
Speaker 2:I'm good, I'm really good, thank you. Thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure to come on no worries at all.
Speaker 1:I just, uh, I saw your instagram a little while ago and I just thought you were an inspiration to see what you've built in terms of your coaching. So, uh, appreciate it. I just want you to kind to give me a little bit of background into what exactly do you do right now. Right now, yeah, for the listener.
Speaker 2:So I'm a fitness entrepreneur. I would say Well, an entrepreneur generally, but health and well-being is my forte. So currently I've got two gyms, one located in Dubai it's basically a hybrid franchise. So we're located inside of another gym, 971 MMA. Big shout out to Munir, who's the owner. So we're inside there and at home I've got my own base with my business partner which we own that's called Heal Wellbeing.
Speaker 2:On top of that, and the main driving force behind that, is my online platform, which is a fitness app called Steadfast. So Steadfast is a methodology. It's a way of training with kettlebells and body weight and all you need is a yoga mat with the size of a yoga mat. You don't even necessarily need the mat, that space, and you can get a full workout with just two kettlebells and your body weight. So we scaled that out and we're putting it in gyms now, but it did start online initially. So I'm basically rolling that out and we're going global with that.
Speaker 2:at the minute I don't like to tell my plans too much, but basically we're gonna be going global this year and as well, on top of that, we I've run, I've got a chain of personal trainers we call them Shredfast instructors. So I've got plenty of them working. I own a cafe called Coffee Asia, which is named after me first born daughter, asia. And I've got another little girl called Amara, which I've opened Amara workshops for her, which will be basically retreats. First one will be coming up this year in Asia Asia, but I won't say where again later this year. So yeah, just a few different different businesses, business ventures, and I'm trying to just get started because I would say in entrepreneurship terms, I probably started late. I mean, I was on my ass until I was 29 living in my mum's house.
Speaker 2:Still, I definitely wasn't a waster, so to speak. I always had drive, but I just couldn't find and kept failing and failing and failing until finally I found self-assert and that's led me to where I am now in four or five years the very end of 2019 is when I started. So a full four years, going into the fifth now. I would say it's a journey so far.
Speaker 1:You just mentioned failure. How important is failure?
Speaker 2:I think failure is everything. If you don't fail, you don't learn, you don't grow and you definitely won't succeed, because you have to try a number of different things before you find the one that fits. I find, and if you don't try a number of different things and you go with the first thing, you're never gonna know what could have been with other, with other parts and with their opportunities. So I feel like to try, fail, go again. Fail, go again is not only the, it's the blueprint for success. I believe it's where most of your lessons are learned along the way. It builds character. You, you learn so many things about yourself, about people, about business, about money. So it's, it's essential really failure.
Speaker 2:I love to fail I I strive for failure, if that makes sense. Obviously. We're in the gym, we for failure with our sets, and I strive for failure in business really essentially because when I say failure, I just want to come up against problems constantly and if I don't feel like there's problems, then I feel like, well, we're not moving, we're not growing. So unless I've got like mini minds all over the place and I'm stepping through them, then I don't really feel excited or motivated. So yeah, I chase failure.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned that you didn't kind of really build anything until you were 29,. But when I did a bit of research on you I could see you were a high-level athlete when you were younger. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that was obviously my main. You know when any young athlete will tell you that your ego is bigger than your talent. So I was just convinced I was going to be a footballer. That was my road, that was my like. I felt like it was laid out, like it was written. And obviously it wasn't to play football.
Speaker 1:Why do you think you wanted to become a footballer? Do you think it was more the persona that?
Speaker 2:comes with it 100%, and I wouldn't say so much. The persona as I ever used to basically obsess over was changing my family's life. So I'd always tell my mum and my sister and my nan I'm going to do this for you, I'm going to do that for you. And that was my main driving force was I'm going to change their life. So that's why I wanted football.
Speaker 1:Why did you want to change their life so much?
Speaker 2:Because we didn't have much. I had a loving family. I never went hungry. I'm not going to sit here and say we didn't have food in the house, et cetera. We always had food, but we didn't have much at all. I lived in a three-bed terrace house with my nan, my mum, my auntie who basically like a sister, so it was me, my auntie and my mum in one room. I shared the bottom bunk with my mum, my auntie was on the top and then my three uncles, gary, phil, and.
Speaker 2:Michael were in the other room, my nan was in the box room. So I grew up very humbly and very. I had so much love around me, but my uncles were always just off doing their own thing, being men, doing what they were doing, going to the pub, etc. I loved them to bits still to this day. One of them passed away, sadly. He was my closest uncle, michael. I used to go to him for everything. He was like my confidant. You know what I mean. He passed away in 2012. But obviously you don't look after men, don't we? I think about looking after men. You think about looking after the women, the mum, the sister. So for me, it was just. I became obsessed with looking after Helen, my mum, and my nan.
Speaker 1:Where was your father?
Speaker 2:My father left before, I think, my first birthday. But I did know who he was. I'd probably seen him a handful of times growing up up until I was 18. And then he did reach out later on in life, got in touch with me and we found out he had terminal cancer. So he passed away a couple of years ago now. But I got to spend a solid six weeks with him before he died and I feel like I really got that bond yeah, I had a good connection with him, learned valuable lessons within that period as well.
Speaker 2:So it was good. Everything happens for a reason. I was heartbroken at the time, which it surprised me, because I'd said things in the past which I won't really repeat, but I wouldn't care if this and that you know, because I didn't know him, I didn't have any love towards him, or at least I didn't think I did. And then when someone passes away, obviously you're like wow, because it felt like a part of me died with him and it then reversed and I feel like he's now living through me and righting all his wrongs through me. So I feel, from the day he passed, my life seemed to elevate. So I believe everything's written and everything happens for a reason and I do believe my dad is living through me now with soul and I do so. Yeah, he wasn't mad when I was growing up, so, as I say, that left me to like basically be raised by women.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you had to carry a lot, then, with the absence of your father?
Speaker 2:When you say carry a lot, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:Because the father figure is not there to I suppose.
Speaker 2:But I didn't think of that when I was a kid. I didn't think I've got to, but I just thought, well, I don't know, on some level, yeah, I suppose I must have. I probably did. Yeah, I probably thought, well, no one else is going to do it, I'm going to have to do it. I probably did think that. Yeah, I just knew I was going to be the one to break this paradigm. We were in a dome and a lot of the family still are, but are looking to bit and it's not that this dome is bad, but it's just an analogy that they're here. And I knew I was going to be the one to break free, because it was all I ever wanted to do was experience a different way of life and experience different things. So I knew I was going to be the one. My whole family knew I was going to be the one. My whole family knew I was going to be the one. You know everyone knew.
Speaker 1:Did you feel pressure then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as it started to get towards the football years, which we'll get on to, yeah, 100%, especially like when I decided to come away from it, I felt like I'd let everybody down.
Speaker 1:So how did you get into Everton or how's what's. So how did you get into Everton? What's the process there? What happened?
Speaker 2:So I played Sunday League, which is just playing with your friends, basically like for Sunday League team grassroots football. I obviously excelled massively and I scored 53 goals in one season, I think in about 20 games. So I was scoring plenty of goals and Everton came and scouted me along with my family.
Speaker 1:It was 55 goals. Was it 53 goals?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I got scouted by Everton, liverpool, stramier and Preston. So I went on trial at the Mall and then decided that I was going to go with Everton, which was a surprise because I was a Liverpool fan, so no one could understand that decision. But I just felt I better connect with the lads there so I signed for them. But instantly I signed for them and that's when I felt the pressure, because it's academy level and everything just changed. It stopped being fun and it was just dead serious and I didn't feel like I was good enough for that level. So that's where my confidence went, from the age of 13 up till 17, I would say where do you think your knock of confidence came from?
Speaker 2:Just not feeling like I was good enough to be in that team, just feeling like the bottom of the barrel, gone from being the star player to the bottom of the barrel. I had to work my way in, didn't always fit in as a child because although I always had a special something about me which people felt, especially my family, because I could be myself in my family, family, but with other people couldn't truly be myself. That makes sense. So I just felt I just didn't feel like I fitted in. So where the chose them, because I fought it fitted in, I just didn't.
Speaker 2:In the end I couldn't really get. That couldn't just be me. Um, excel, do you know? I just couldn't really get. That Couldn't just be me. And excel, do you know? I just couldn't do it. I just I meant no block, that happened. So yeah, I don't really know what it was, why, but I just know that I didn't feel I could truly be myself. I always felt shelled. And then at 17, basically I used to get called Wes Brown, which I don't know. If you know the footballer west brown, so he's ginger and mixed race.
Speaker 2:So like it was the little for some reason he used to do me. I didn't know I was getting called on the coach and I said to the lad like don't call me, that's the first time I basically stepped up on the coach. It was driving to leads away and from that moment, without going too deep into the whole story, I just found myself a little bit and gained the respect of everyone.
Speaker 2:So I just went up a little level and then from then I was able to be me, and then by the end I was the boss of the changing room, so to speak.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. So I went from not really speaking to everyone listening to what I said and I found myself at around about 18 and I never, ever let it slip from that minute. But then I continued to build on the respect I have for myself and other people respecting me and I just made sure any time I met people I gained the respect of them. I'm not saying I was respected massively at that age that young age, I definitely wasn't still but I was respected a lot more than I was and I knew that I was going to make sure that I was for the rest of my life then, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So when you said that you couldn't really stand out, well, you felt like you never fit in. When you were younger, what do you think encouraged that? Do you think it was because everyone else looked the same, or did you look different, or what was it?
Speaker 2:I looked different, you know. So I just looked different. Yeah, I didn't. I felt I was too white for the, too white for the black kids, too black for the white kids. I was just in this little niche where people say are you black or are you white? And it was just. I felt this disconnect. People could never understand where I was from, Whereas now that's my power, Do you know, like that's my power, now I stand on that. Look different. I love that I look different.
Speaker 2:I look anyone in the eye. Like I do not care what you think of me, what skin color you think I am, what ethnicity, like it does not matter, nothing will affect my soul. So. But at the time I felt like everything was, everything was being judged.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you just want to fit in when you're younger, you just needed the dad, didn't you, To just go and stand up for yourself. You needed that person who, when you came home at night with a little chip on your shoulder, you'd had someone saying, no, listen, go and back yourself. Basically, you don't get that. When you've got women at home, you go. Oh, I love you OK.
Speaker 2:Give you a hug, make sure everything's better. Yeah, I play with my mum's ears. So what I used to do is play with my mum's ears for comfy. So I'd literally just get on with my mum and give me a cuddle when I was a kid and then play with her ears and that would be my comfy. But with my family I had different persons. You get me. I didn't have many friends as a young, young child. I just used to play with my cousins because we had a massive family, so my nan had 13 children so my mum was one of 13.
Speaker 2:So we had a big extended family, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So when you started playing for Everton, then do you feel like that allowed you to gain self-confidence or self-appreciation for who you were as a person as well?
Speaker 2:As I started to progress through yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I say so, I felt out of place at first and then I started to grow into myself around about the time I just said, and became confident. And with the confidence I became a better player. But I still just didn't quite make the cut when it came to getting off of the professional contract. I'd done my scholarship until I was 18 and then I was let go and that crushed me obviously, because since I was six, seven years old, I assumed I was going to be a footballer. So when that come crashing down, obviously that was a big turning point again. But what had happened? By that point I'd become this big macho man. I think I'm the boy. Then I couldn't let this ego thing go. Then I just went on this rampage for two, three years of being an absolute lunatic and loose cannon. I learned so much about myself in that time. I got myself into a lot of trouble during that period.
Speaker 1:What kind of trouble are we looking at?
Speaker 2:Fighting A lot that I can't really even speak about, just a lot of trouble with the wrong people. I was never a bad person. That's one thing I can always just stand on. It was always fighting for someone else, or fighting for what I thought was right, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or backing up someone who never would have backed me up, and you know like I'm a very loyal person. So I found myself sticking up for the people who probably would have went running if the shoe was on the other foot.
Speaker 2:I was always that guy like no, no, no, and then next minute is all. I just got myself into a lot of trouble and just found myself slowly becoming a different person, someone I didn't want to become. So I had to check myself. A big incident happened, which is I'd got all the right side of my teeth smashed out, so I had a big scar that you can't really see and I was going to bathe no teeth on the right side of my mouth and stuff and that was like a turning point for me definitely.
Speaker 1:So once you hit that, what age were you then?
Speaker 2:21, maybe 20, 21, something like that.
Speaker 1:Big drinking days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so just well, it wasn't when, when I was drinking, that that was the effect of something. So it was just yeah, that was just a normal, normal day, something like that happens. Obviously you're like, okay, let's get back on track, let's, let's just become a better person now. Because my auntie, helen slash sister, who works for us now now, and she had two young children, she still has got two young boys, archie and Jude. They're like me, little brothers, they're me world.
Speaker 2:So when that happened, a number of my family just had nothing to do with me. But then Helen said listen, you can't see the boys, no more, you can't. I used to take them bowling into the pitches and this and that, and she was like you can't see them unless you sort yourself out. So I just stopped everything, come away, went and done a personal training course and then that's what led me onto this and I was still an absolute lunatic though, by the way, just maybe a little bit when I was 10, I might have reduced it to like a six, five, six for a few years, but I was still like a young boy. You all make mistakes in your 20s, don't you? Son, I was just. I just tamed it down, got my life on track a little bit more, got a bit of consistency, built a clientele, become like a popular personal trainer within Liverpool, within the city, because I just like a no-nonsense approach. I'd get you in shape. Everyone knew if you come to me, I'd get you in shape. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I just built a reputation in that sense and went from there really, when you started to grow your career, from that stage that obviously you had a bit of an incident, did you notice your friend circle began to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. I went to just having really two, three friends for a number of years and now I've got a lot more friends and what I've realised is it's not how long you've known someone, it's the strength of the bond within that time, Because, honestly, I've met some people, even in the last six months, who I'll be brothers with them for life, I'd stand on them for life. So I just I used to have this mindset once that happened, because that incident happened, a lot of people had done me over, so to speak, so I just went into this mode of don't trust no one, no one's your friend, et cetera, whereas I had to change that. And that just comes naturally. It's not helpful.
Speaker 2:No, that just comes naturally, though. That just comes from meeting some amazing people and then being like yo, not everyone is out there. I think, whatever you see the world, the world will deliver back 100%. So if I see everyone as being a rat, and so I see everyone as being deceiving, conniving, a bad person, then the world's going to be full of bad people, conniving people, and I'm going to be cheated and done over and robbed, and you know what I'm saying. So I just started to see the world in a positive light.
Speaker 2:One thing I did do on my journey was become too too obsessed with positive like mentality, too obsessed with it, because you need the bad. You can't have the good without the bad. So when you just have the good, you don't know how to handle the bad. So what I've learned to do now is I do me prayers as soon as I wake up, my affirmations and I speak into existence everything at once, but I'm not afraid to allow bad news to be put at me, where I used to say don't tell me I'm bad, don't talk to me about no positive, no negative things. You end up. What conversation can you have, really, if you're not going to speak about something negative and you never learn how to adapt. If you're going to just only absorb the good, you can't just. That's not how life works, is it? You can't just have the good. So I was guilty of that early on, whereas now I'm open to both.
Speaker 1:It's just one extreme to another. You know you throw yourself into fitness and then you just go well, harm at it, and then you realise when you need to sustain something and develop something you need to find the space in the middle 100%, I agree so mental health. What have you done for your mental health?
Speaker 2:mental health. I, during that period, as I say, I went through a really dark depression where I didn't think there was any hope Like I genuinely I thought I was losing my marbles, you know, like I was convinced that this is. I'm at the end of the road here. There was one day in particular where I was felt like I was about to lose me, lose my mind.
Speaker 1:What does losing your mind look like?
Speaker 2:It feels like you're on the edge of a cliff. Yeah. The only way I gonna describe it. I felt like I was there about to fall and if I fell, I didn't feel like I'd be able to get myself back. That make sense? That's what I'm gonna describe it as. This whole day I lay in bed and I was actually doing that to my head because I couldn't get out of my head and I'm not a psychopath, by the way.
Speaker 1:I've had other guests, though, don't worry.
Speaker 2:No, but I'm genuinely not. I'm very, very headstrong, always have been, since I started to get myself on track, anyway, in terms of mentally anyway. So I've never thought of doing anything stupid or anything like that. It wasn't that point, point. I was just literally sitting there thinking what's going on?
Speaker 2:yeah, it was like my brain didn't stop thinking. It was just like they were just non-stop. Do you understand? Yeah, so that's, that was the day. And after that I was like right, I've got to do something, because I didn't think that day I was even going to get through that day. So when I woke up the next day and still felt like I mean, if I went to like minus 20 on that day, I woke up the following day on minus 10, but I at least could like gather a little bit of thought for maybe two minutes. Following day I got to maybe like a two and then like a zero, and but I stayed on zero for a very long time. So that's where I developed the method with him. It's so fast. I actually just self-taught myself. I read books, listened to podcasts, went on walks, did meditations, did courses, went to Wim Hof, went to Thailand, done a lot of traveling, studied breath work, studied the brain and just self-taught myself everything.
Speaker 1:So when you started reading books, was there any book in particular that stood out to you Think?
Speaker 2:and Grow Rich.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Napoleon Hill, it's the obvious one.
Speaker 2:now it does me head in a little bit, but I'm convinced. I put it on the map, I swear. I tell myself all the time. But no, yeah, think and Grow Rich, because it just put me in a different state of mind. It got me thinking differently, you know how's?
Speaker 1:how important is it to listen to audible books or read books?
Speaker 2:I think it's essential in your early days, because what will happen if you're successful is you'll get to a point you really genuinely haven't got much time to read, like where I'm at the minute, yeah, and you can always say you can always find time to read, but I'm too busy doing at the minute.
Speaker 2:In your early stage, I think it's essential, yeah, and then it is still essential to keep trying to get it in, as, even if it's a little fraction of what you used to read, at least keep doing it a little bit so, when it comes to self-development, do you think um you should continue on self-development all throughout your life? 100, I just think learning. Yeah, you've got to always learn you know what? I mean, I put a quote up today. It's from jim ron and it says if people wait for motivation, but if you motivate an idiot, you've got a motivated idea you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean you just have to learn. Learn is more important than motivation. So if you're sat there and you go, I've got no motivation, then just learn. Because if I'm sat there and I've got no motivation to get off the couch, if I pick up a book about health and well-being and what can potentially happen to your life when you get fit and healthy, then I'm going to learn and then I'm probably going to get the motivation through learning. Do you understand what I mean? So I just feel like learning is the key. Don't wait for motivation, because it peaks and troughs. Some days you'll feel good, some days you'll feel bad. You've just got to literally just learn all the way through your life, but it's not necessarily reading books and audio books. I've learned more in the last six months than I have in the previous six years. That's a fact since being here.
Speaker 1:And what has that entailed? Like, what have you done?
Speaker 2:It's very hard to put my finger on it. I just understand life, I understand people, I understand how everything works.
Speaker 2:I just understand. I understand everything. I just understand business. I understand people, understand why people say certain things. I understand how people act when the benefiting from you, as opposed to how the act when they're not benefiting from me. Look and understand now more deeply of how people will manipulate into thinking they're doing something for you when they're not. When they see, when you're not that experienced in business, they'll pretend. And into thinking they're doing something for you when they're not. When you're not that experienced in business, they'll pretend and act as though they're doing so much when they're doing so little. And then someone else comes around and shines a torch and says no, this is what X should be doing for you. And I've just learned so much, so much in that sense.
Speaker 2:Speed if I had to just give you some, because I sound like I'm just talking in some tribal language no one can understand. So I'd say speed kills, so you have to move at speed and no, black people don't sleep. I spoke to literally five or six people. I can think right off the top of my head now who've said the words I work 24-7. They've actually said them words on text to me. So when I've said I'm not sure if you're available right now. I work 24-7. That's what I get when I'm here. So that's just. I understood that. Just speed time done.
Speaker 1:You've got 24 hours in a day people don't see 12 hour days, yet it's 24 hours.
Speaker 2:You've got, yeah, you're not. And then the next 24 hours starts the second that, that 12 o'clock hits for the following so there's no slowing down, speed kills and I just think that when you understand that, which I do, that'll open up a lot more those that people doesn't.
Speaker 1:There's no time to waste do you think that's had an effect? Or you've had this idea of understanding everything because you've come to Dubai, which is a new place, and you're probably rubbing shoulders with people who've been through all the different business challenges. You're dealing with lots of people who are super intellectual over here.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you think that's allowed you to take a pause back and analyse and digest what's going on? To take a pause back and analyze and digest what's going on?
Speaker 2:yeah, not, not pause and step back the opposite yeah about to jump in the race and keep up yeah like I said an analogy. The other day to my friend I said you know the way they say it's not a, it's a, it's a marathon, not a sprint. Well, now it's a marathon, but everyone's sprinting because of technology. Yeah, so we're in a marathon and everyone's sprinting. Well, now it's a marathon, but everyone's sprinting because of technology. So we're in a marathon and everyone's sprinting full pace and it's no longer.
Speaker 2:You can't keep that up because you can't because of AI. So that's essentially where we're at right now, in my opinion. So you're either in or you're out. That's why I laugh when people when I say there's no one competing on my socials and stuff I love saying it because it's conservation people really don't know what to take. But people I just watch people working at something, not understanding that you have to work on the. It's hard to explain what I'm saying the work at the object instead of making the object work for them. And that's where I'm like. I can't see anyone competing with what I'm going to bring if that makes sense because I'm going to make fitness work.
Speaker 2:For me, the fitness game will do the work what differentiates you as opposed to the normal coach? The intention, my intention behind it, and what coach the intention?
Speaker 1:the intention behind it and what's the intention?
Speaker 2:from me helping myself so you know you can imagine you've got to. We've all had two takes before. If you found something one day, if you just got a paracetamol and a little bit of apple cider vinegar and something else and you whisked it up and you drank it and it instantly went, you'd want to share that with the world. Yeah, because you know how painful it can be to have two fake will have essentially found that through fitness, yeah, mental mental well health, health and well-being, because I can't just say fitness, because it genuinely isn't, it's a mental.
Speaker 2:I found a mental and physical formula that cures the body and the mind.
Speaker 1:How much of it do you think is mental to have a transformation? 50-50. You think 50-50,?
Speaker 2:yeah, people say this like 90-10, don't they 80-20. 50-50. Why do you think it's? 50-50? Because I believe everything in life is 50-50. Good and the bad. Do you know what I mean? You go into a partnership with someone 50-50. That's the best case scenario, because if you don't go 50-50, someone's always going to feel I'm getting less. So, whatever you think, let's just go semi-circle there you go?
Speaker 1:how do you try and find the balance in between the 50 50 split, though, do you feel like sometimes some days you're like 60 here, 40 here in what sense? Sorry because like if you think your success comes from 50, your mindset 50? Your nutrition and fitness, or whatever it is some days, do you? You find yourself, oh here, I'm 80 today.
Speaker 2:One million percent, so of course it'll vary. Yeah. But if you're asking for the, what do I think the true effect is? I think over the period of 12 months it'll balance out to 50-50.
Speaker 1:What do you struggle with the most?
Speaker 2:Not being able to switch off. So feeling enough, always feeling like I've got to prove myself. That's what I struggle with mentally.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean when my dad's telling me just just relax and enjoy and take this time, and I'm like I can't really. I've got to always be moving. But that's just cliche, that's just a sound like every other entrepreneur who probably comes on the show and says that. So it is what it is, that's it.
Speaker 2:I don't particularly struggle with anything. I still get anxious, still get scared, still get fearful, still get, I wouldn't say, regretful of the past, still think about the past now and then. Very little, but I still think about the past sometimes. So I'd say I struggle with what everyone struggles with, but I've developed the tools to combat them. So when they come, they go Instead of letting them fester. I don't particularly struggle with any aspect right now. I would say motivation to actually work out is much easier when you're younger, so when you're in your twenties, and that it's much easier than motivation side. As soon as you get up, boom, you want to train, which everyone says. Again, if I had to pinpoint anything, I'd say that might've dropped no 1%. That's about it. It's never going to stop me from training.
Speaker 1:Do you have any regrets? No, no, no regrets at all.
Speaker 2:None at all yeah.
Speaker 1:None at all, because you said that you mentioned. Sometimes you think about the past a little.
Speaker 2:More so to ensure I've learned the lesson.
Speaker 1:How important is it to self-reflect on your past?
Speaker 2:Well, it's my fifth. Rule on the Shredfast Principles is self-reflection on a daily basis, so analysing the day and going over the day and thinking what could I have done better, what did I do well. So I do it every second of every day, so literally. So I finished the work, out the recording for the app, and I'm thinking what could they have done better. I eat my next meal and I'm thinking could I had something better? I finished this podcast. I think could I have done a little bit better. So I'm constantly self reflecting and it's a process I would advise anyone who wants to be successful to do is constantly self analyse.
Speaker 1:Is there ever a time where your mind is just calm? There's no tabs open.
Speaker 2:There is times, because my girl said that the other day and I'd come out of yoga after we'd done a self-fast. I'd just come out of a little yoga and my mom was just chill for maybe three or four minutes and then, I seen someone started talking again and my energy level went back high. I'd say sometimes, very, very rarely, I get lost. Oh yeah, actually you're watching the box, not watching the UFC.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sport is often something where people can just absolutely zone out yeah, because I get so invested.
Speaker 2:If it's a really good fight, I'll actually forget the world's going on for that real short period of time, how important is it to do something that you like on a daily basis, then? I don't think it's that important.
Speaker 1:On a daily basis, but for your wellbeing, for your mental health.
Speaker 2:But when you say like, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:Because obviously you're in your passion now.
Speaker 2:You know doing fitness health.
Speaker 1:For someone who's a corporate worker? Right, they hate their job. How important is it for them to do something that they enjoy on a daily?
Speaker 2:basis. Well, I would tell them to chase their passion, not do something they like. So, outside of the corporate job, I'd tell them to focus on their passion. So they might not like it. That's why I think like's a difficult one for me. There's not much I like. If I actually really self-honor lies, there's not much I like. There's not much I enjoy and the the usual things that people would usually enjoy, and I can't even name any because I don't really do anything like that but just say, for example, I do like to walk yeah.
Speaker 2:I enjoy walking and I do that every day so yeah. I would say that, but I do that as part. Yeah, I enjoy walking and I do that every day. So, yeah, I would say that, but I do that as part of my protocol for my mental health and it's one of the five principles as well.
Speaker 1:What are the five principles?
Speaker 2:The first one is affirmation or prayer, depending if you're religious or not. Then it's cold water therapy. So you jump in a cold shower or the other way around cold water therapy. Affirmation, prayer, steadfast workout, walking or running, depending on what you like to do, and then self-reflection.
Speaker 1:They're the five so when you say Wim Hof yeah all right, tell me about that. How did you get into that?
Speaker 2:um, I just I found him online and started doing his breathing techniques and I just liked him, I liked his story, I thought he was a cool guy. And then my good friend Mark Scanlon. He paid for me to go on a trip with him to Poland, with Wim Hof. No way so six of us went, six scouts. We met some of the most amazing people I've ever met in my life. The whole course was brilliant.
Speaker 1:What did the course include? What were you doing?
Speaker 2:Breath work, cold water therapy, and the last day was to walk up a mountain where it went to minus 15, 20 degrees in just a pair of shorts. But they taught us how to breathe and how to regulate our body temperature that whole week. So nothing happened. We all stood at the top with no top on, and the people who guard you up because they do it all the time and they're not there to learn what we're learning they were walking up in full, full ski things like head to toe, you know, like full thermals, which showed how cold it was at the top. You could see it. It was a blizzard at the top when we got there. So reality would say, and like physics would say, you'd get hypothermia, or. And we didn't because of the breathing that we learned and because of the adaptation to the cold. So we learned how to control the mind and not allow the body to be affected by, not allow the mind to be affected by how the body feels.
Speaker 1:It's always good so during that period you probably find a lot of presence in yourself. You know, I'm sure you feel grounded and very centered I.
Speaker 2:I released trauma that day that I didn't even know was in me, like the first day it all came out to me and I broke down for about two hours straight during the breath work, crying yeah, yeah, broke down All my friends, rami and that everyone felt it.
Speaker 2:And because I have like I have I don't usually no people might think I do, but I don't usually pick myself up too much, but I have got a powerful order of energy. I know that. And when I felt it come out, everyone in the room kind of felt it. So the whole room was a little bit like they all kind of gravitated towards me and I had everyone there's 100 people in the room and we were split into groups of 25. But we were all in the room for this first breath work and when I did that I was screaming and shouting and punching the floor and stuff like that and it kind of garnered everyone to hover by me and I felt this energy and the healing aspect. And then I was always getting pulled to speak to different people after that day because that was the first day I think people felt that powerful order. And then I was.
Speaker 2:I became a little like when hoff kept calling me by name and stuff well, he called me the muslim man messing around, um, but I felt like everyone kind of noticed and they give me. They give me a good feeling inside to know that my energy was as powerful as I thought it was and that what the main thing was is that I felt like my energy was healing other people and that's why people wanted to come to me. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Or do you think maybe you were healing yourself, the little child that potentially didn't get the love I did? That's exactly what I did.
Speaker 2:But because I heal myself, my power quadrupled. This is my point. So I always had a powerful energy around me and everywhere I'd go and everything I touch I feel like turns to gold that's like I've always felt that way when I healed that day. I just magnified in my powers.
Speaker 2:I felt like spiritually and I was able to heal so many people on that trip. One girl had a really bad experience during the last breath work, and I went over and I put my hand on her chest before, just before, and then she burst into tears and started crying, and everyone came round and I felt like I helped her massively. Massively, though, because she came out of that and seemed like a different person. So I feel that, in healing myself myself, just like with the self-fast, I was able to then heal others, and that was the start of self-fast as well. That was 2020, and then I went on to self-fast or then injected all of that energy, and that's what I say at the end of every workout go and inject that positivity with everyone you interact with today, and that's why no one can match what I'm doing. When people ask what's the difference Because that's the difference At Sands Mutual, they have me think of all the pain I've had, all the learning, all the hardware failures, and I put it into a product.
Speaker 2:And not many people know how to do that, but I did.
Speaker 1:And I knew how to package it up so even after that, do you find it's quite difficult to hold on to that presence that you have? You know, when you go through moments where maybe you've yoga or you have like Wim Hof, how do you package that feeling that you have of presence?
Speaker 2:I wish I knew the answer. I wish I knew the answer, but I don't know how to. I don't think it'd be any good if you did know how to. I wish I knew the answer. I wish I knew the answer, but I don't know how to. I don't think it'd be any good if you didn't know how to, because you just use it all the time. It loses value. So I like that it comes and goes, because when it comes you value it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's really important to do these things every so often, especially when you're driving, driving, driving, driving. You do so often, especially when you're driving, driving, driving, driving. You do need to replenish that energy back, get centred, gain perspective and then go back at it again. Oh, 100%.
Speaker 2:I just love to travel. So since I've been here I haven't travelled as much, because I'm basically travelling when I'm here. But I always used to just go on holiday every like six weeks, eight weeks. I'd just take all the family away. That was my little moment where I'd just self reflect and take my foot off the gas a little bit and then go back and work hard again.
Speaker 1:How do you find now the ecosystem here in Dubai now, because it's so fast paced? Do you see yourself maybe going all in work, work, work, that maybe you might lose the essence of yourself?
Speaker 2:I've thought that and I've now found the right people when it's. God will always guide you if you ask him and always open the right doors. So if you ask for the right people to enter your life and you continue to get up and do the right things, god will open the right doors. And for the right people to enter your life and you continue to get up and do the right things, god will open the right doors and deliver the right people and make the circumstances unfold in front of you. So that's exactly what's happening right now is that I needed people who were gonna be able to do X so that I could keep doing Y, and that's exactly what's happening right now. So the answer is no, I won't. I'll be left to do what I do best, and so I'll be able to. Basically, someone said a great analogy to me yesterday and he basically said I'm the chef, you're the ingredients so.
Speaker 2:I get to just be the ingredients, which is I'm happy.
Speaker 1:When you are the happy, when you are the person that you are today. Right, how do you manage to differentiate what's a good opportunity for you and what's a bad opportunity, because I'm sure you've loads of opportunities that come to your fingertips energy.
Speaker 2:There's someone's energy. I have to interact with that person. I won't ever interact with a company or a representative, so I've got a big opportunity that is coming up in just under a month's time. Now Can? You talk about it?
Speaker 2:No, I actually really can't. I can't at all, but that came about through kind of a middle person, but then me main fingers. Just I need to see what this is about. I don't want to hear or talk to anyone. Let me see what this is about. So for me it's just reading someone's energy. I have to work with people, not companies.
Speaker 1:Do you ever go against your gut feeling? Yeah, and have been proven wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many times I've been proven wrong, so as in like going against my gut and it's worked out good yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't think that can ever happen. I believe that then it was fear you know like, because if you're actually then back back to that, it's easy in retrospect to say that. But I do feel like if I've ever stepped into me fear, I've been a word and I feel like there's a significant difference between fear and good. Your gut will just instantly like chain If you nah, that's totally different than I don't know, you know. So if I'm like I don't know, you know go.
Speaker 2:Oh, if you're in the between you just go, yeah, yeah, 100%, no time to waste, like we just said. So if you, then someone else comes in. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's you know go. If you fail, pick up, pack up, start again anyway. So, as I said before earlier in the conversation, you learn the skills necessarily through failure, which means that if you end up failing and losing everything God willing that doesn't happen You've got the skills to get back where you was 10 times quicker than it took you to get there in the first place. So if it took you five years to build a business and you lose it all, it's not going to take you five years to build a business and you lose it all. It's not going to take you five years to build a business again. It's going to take you five months a year. It wouldn't be anywhere. I know it would. I'd know what to do.
Speaker 1:Do you ever worry about losing everything no no no yeah, it's not worth worrying about nothing we leave with nothing.
Speaker 2:there's another, another quote someone said to me recently and it's very true.
Speaker 1:So, on a day-to-day basis, what does a day look like for you?
Speaker 2:Every day is different. But affirmations, prayer, give all praise to God, who is my only idol, the only thing I worship, the only thing I fear, the only thing I look to impress or idol to the last in any way is God. So I'll give all thanks to him. Then I'll get into the shower. After that, affirmations, so I'll read through my affirmations. Then, after that supplements and coffee breakfast, go to the gym. Either record or train myself. So either running or I'll do some type of training. At 10am, Shower changed, eat my food and then, since I've been here, there's no predicting what will come after 12pm.
Speaker 2:It can just be anything. I really couldn't give you a normal day like today. It was prayers straight at one till two and then straight to you. A little bit of food straight to you here now. Don't know what I'll do after this. Maybe go see a few friends, or don't know what I'll do, but every day is just being different it's a real dubai lifestyle I think everyone like, especially an entrepreneur over here.
Speaker 1:You just never know what's going to be thrown at you and getting used to the traffic and stuff is difficult.
Speaker 2:So I'm just still on England time. I'm learning to just say like traffic-dependent now with everything that I say, I'll be there, traffic-dependent at this time Because you can't say I've done well to get here today for 3pm. I'm just on time, so that's just because I left as early as I possibly could. You know, it's difficult. The days just seem to just vanish Because everything is so fast-paced it doesn't slow down. Yeah, yeah, the days can go really quick and getting from place to place can be really difficult, so every day is different.
Speaker 1:But do you feel like in Dubai you can get a massive amount of things done here, more than in the UK?
Speaker 2:It's just so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So much.
Speaker 1:How important is your environment and your living habitat for your success?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I was primed my environment for success. So at the minute I'm living with three of my friends Raiad, karl and John and I've got them. We're all living together. We're eating food steak, oats and eggs. We're all living together.
Speaker 2:We're eating food steak, oats and eggs. We're all praying, we're all very religious, we train hard, we pray hard, we eat good, we bond, we laugh, we joke, we work, we talk about problems and my environment. Then, outside of that, as soon as I leave that one environment, I'm going to a gym 971. Amazing people, the owner, proper man of God, everyone in there is a man of God. I'm then surrounded by the amazing community of Chef Fast. You come in, the members fill my cup, I fill theirs, the team fill theirs, and then from there I'll only interact with people like yourself. Again, I'm coming here. I'm yourself. Again, I'm coming here. I'm filling my cup, I'm feeding my soul. If you wasn't, I wouldn't still be here.
Speaker 2:I'd have got up and left, and again, not because toxic positivity, but because we don't know each other and stuff. You don't need to be mad at people you don't know who are going to bring you down.
Speaker 2:What you do need to do, though. The reason, again with toxic positivity is that which, if your family member comes to you and goes, I'm really struggling. You can't say no, no, no, don't talk to me, just keep it positive. You know what I mean. You love these people. You'd have to sit there and listen to them, pour their heart out and tell them how bad the world is and say I know, I know it is, but like you've got to do this and that's what I meant by that so I don't allow any negativity in my circle whatsoever. There's no, there's no. I don't allow a negative person anywhere near me.
Speaker 1:I can smell it as soon as I walk into a building do you know, I I agree with you with, in some sense, right where I was my own boss. I was actually a coach for seven and a half years. I did online coaching and then I gave it up, went into the corporate space. I was my own boss and I never I. I could pick and choose who I worked with. I could pick and choose, you know, the most positive people in the world. Yeah, pick and choose the clients. And when I went into corporate I thought you're going to have a mix bunch and I actually found the negative people in the room teach you serious lessons, because you have to manage your emotions, so it becomes a skill that you develop you have to deal with negative people.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean you have to let them in your circle, though yeah true. So you, I'm not working in a corporate environment, which means I get the luxury of choosing who's in my circle. That doesn't mean I don't have to interact or deal with negative people, because you can get negative people who come into the class, but I guarantee you I'll send them out in a more positive mind frame is that like a little challenge that you like to take on board?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that, I think, as a good coach, I think it's a good thing to have.
Speaker 2:Yeah definitely, definitely. I'm not doing too much coaching per se right now. I take the odd class, but I'm teaching the methods to my coaches, who make sure everyone goes away with a smile on their face, which is the most important. And, as I say, for me it's not about not dealing with negative people, because you do learn from that. I deal with negative situations and circumstances. I don't necessarily feel like you've got to deal with negative people to learn.
Speaker 2:You've just got to learn with shit. This has gone sideways, that's broke, that's not fixed. I have to deal with negative people within my company all the time. I have to deal with people I don't necessarily like within my company all the time?
Speaker 1:What do you do with negative people when you speak to them?
Speaker 2:Just speak to them. Do you speak their language or do you change?
Speaker 2:I feel like I change and I feel like it's very hard for me not to change. I try to not change, but I can't be okay. So I just find myself being a certain way with people that I really don't want to conversate with. If I ever pick up the phone and really don't want to text someone, then I'm probably not going to be interacting with them for very much longer. I have a thing I always say and you said this too within my life I wake up at three o'clock in the morning and it happens when there's someone in my life who I know shouldn't be in my life, or who god is forcing out of my life, and I wake up and they're just there, just that the name, the, the face, it's just there. And it happens until I get rid of them, like honestly, every single time and it's happened so much in the last six months and I just wake up and they're just there there there, there, and I can't get rid of them.
Speaker 2:And then boom, they go the next night to sleep like a baby. So it's like I always know. I always know.
Speaker 1:Because this is the Detached podcast. What would you detach yourself away from? That's limiting you today. It's so fun, man, I'll put you on the spot it's a very tough one.
Speaker 2:I feel like if you ever detach yourself away from something, you'll find something else.
Speaker 1:You can adopt something more positive, though you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I suppose you can. No, you definitely can.
Speaker 2:But then some part of your psyche will always look for your vice, something that pulls you down. The devil will always be knocking at the door. So I feel like, just as long as you keep the devil at bay, it's the. It's the devil that you've got to go to war with. It's not anything per se, because the devil will turn anything in to a negative if he wants to, I believe. So we can turn something that you deem as good and positive and a better option, and he can. He can dilute that in like the click of a finger.
Speaker 2:So I just always be very conscious of what. What's being put in front of me, what opportunities around me, the people who are around me. Why are they around me? Are they trying to get something out of me? Are they trying to lure me? Are they trying to be in with me? Are they trying to get something out of me? I'm just very aware of everything like that. I believe everyone has a vice. Everyone has something that they do that they know they shouldn't do and they try and stop doing that. I think every human being on the planet has got that. But I believe that if you've got these things under control and you're aware of them is the biggest problem. That's the biggest problem when people don't understand that you've got them and they're just doing it and they're just in lululand. So I wouldn't say I need to detach myself from anything per se, because I don't believe anything that I'm doing is truly detrimental to my life, my mental health or my relationships.
Speaker 2:I believe if you look to do the right thing each and every day, you genuinely got the pure intentions which people can say. But having always got, then I believe, believe you'll live a happy life.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being on the podcast. You're welcome. Thank you for having me on I appreciate it. Where can everyone find you?
Speaker 2:So shredfast on Instagram I've got no idea what we're called on TikTok we haven't seen that post, but we're on TikTok as well and shredfastprogrammecouk for our URL, and then we'll be launching a brand new app in the near future. So hopefully within the next four weeks, there'll be a brand new Shredfast app on Apple Store.
Speaker 1:Wishing you all the best for it.
Speaker 2:Thanks very much.