Jimn Kyles 0:05
Welcome to the unstuck and unstoppable podcast where we help you move your life forward. If you’ve ever wanted to start a morning routine to supercharge your day, build inner strength and live an epic life. Then you’re tuning in to the right episode of our podcast today. I have a special guest here with me, Anthony Asbury. What’s up, Anthony?

Anthony 0:29
Jose, good morning. Good afternoon evenings, I never know what time it is when I’m talking to men from across the world.

Jimn Kyles 0:33
Yeah. Well, we’re so delighted. And where are you located right now tell the audience where you’re at.

Anthony 0:39
So I’ll try and make it easy. I’m about an hour and a half north of London in the UK. So it’s eight o’clock in the evening here. So it’s been dark for four hours already, which is a bit painful when I’m more of a sandwich.

Jimn Kyles 0:50
Well, it is so good to have you here on the podcast today. For those of you that don’t know, Anthony, let me give you a little bit about his background. He is the founder of Hillman Academy. He is the creator of the energy protocol course. And the one day reset epic morning routine. He’s also a men’s mentor. He’s a podcast host. He’s a speaker of father. He’s a researcher of great men and a student of life, and has become a friend of mine. And I’m so thrilled to have you on the podcast today. Now, you typically focus a lot on men, and mentoring young professional men and men in their 30s and 40s. And so I’m so excited to have you now if you’re a woman, and you’re listening to the podcast, don’t tune out because there’s a lot of great things that we’re going to learn today that are applicable to you as well. And so Anthony, you and I got to know each other on your podcast, I was a guest recently. And we just had such a blast, I invited you here. And I’m so thrilled to have you. I know we were talking even before we hit record so many great things we’re gonna talk about. We’re gonna talk about a morning routine to supercharge your day, we’re going to talk about building inner strength, and then really just living an epic life. Now, before we do that, I do want to just give a huge shout out to everyone who’s watching either on YouTube or you’re listening through wherever the content is consumed. Thank you. Thank you, thank you for purchasing my brand new book unstuck and unstoppable. I just I just want to shout out and say thank you because it hit number one new books sold on Amazon in three categories over the last two weeks Christian counseling, religious counseling, and then Christian professional growth. And so just want to give a huge shout out. Thank you for all the love the support. Thank you. For those that are leaving reviews, it always helps to spread the word so grateful for each and every one of you now, let’s dive in today. Anthony, come on. So you’re in the UK. And you started a great organization called Hole man Academy. Can you tell us just a little bit about what you started?

Anthony 3:02
Sure. It was born from 20 years of working in the city. So I worked for some of the big kind of other commodity traders or brokers. And I started looking around in my mid 30s. And thinking is this it. And you know, in a potted history, I was spending pretty much 200 hours a month at my desk, where I had to get up at half past five every morning, whether the morning routine starts to be born from the importance of kind of starting your day, right? And I’d be at my desk from 645 in the morning until at least five or six at night, take clients out take clients away for weekends skiing and to Ibiza and all these places, which sounds great, but after Holly, it drains you drains your biological battery. And around the time I wanted to leave, you know, I’d got into personal development, I’d been delighted enough to go out to places like Miami to spend time around Tony Robbins, and started to reflect more on what I did the contribution I was giving to life, which, you know, all I was doing was contributing a lot of money to people I didn’t really know. And that didn’t really leave me with a warm glow.

Jimn Kyles 4:07
Well, that’s awesome. So here you are, you’re stuck in your job 20 years, and then you decide man, I’m gonna take a risk. I’m gonna start something that’s within me now. You focused on men, which you and I got connected through social media. I’m so grateful for social media. I mean, it really connected us and then technology throughout the world. We’ve been on each other’s podcast, but how did you get a passion for men? Like, that’s pretty specific, you know? It’s not just young professionals or professionals or so tell me a little bit about that. So here you are hired to do Yeah, and I’m gonna jump in teaching miss.

Anthony 4:43
It was looking around and saying to state the obvious, you know, I’ve been a professional man all my life, hell, or at least or mating. And I felt like there was a niche. I mean, we saw a lot in the UK, especially where women seem to find spaces to talk and to, you know, and collaborate, be it from a professional side of things as well as personal. And men are very direct insular. And if you look at a gym, often you’ll find women will be in groups talking and they’ll do classes, a lot of men will be headphones, you know, hood up, and they’re just training. And you don’t have to look far. I mean, most people realize now the the massive difference between the suicide rate and male to female. In the previous podcast, I said, I’d seen the stats in the US from 2020, or 2021 is four times as many men as women, they’re taking their own life now. Wow. You know, for me, you know, business is about niching down as well. And I was like, Well, what do I know a lot of men? What do I know how they work? And the mental health side of things, I think is should be a huge worry for, for society. Because you know, that, you know, why are so many people taking their own life is one big question. But the next one is why there’s so many more men and women, right? And I try and break that down in podcast, but there seems to be a deep big disconnect between, kind of, well, we could call it a faith in life, because I think a lot of men are sleepwalking through life. They’re distracted by the mainstream media. And you’ve got all the coping mechanisms, if you’re alcohol, you porn, your fast food too much, you know, all these different things. And I looked and thought, I think I can make a dent in that it’s not trying to solve anything. It’s not trying to cure anyone is saying, you know, how can I kind of help more professional men bring their life up a level, you’re not trying to get all the problems disappearing? But you know, can you start the day the right way? Can you help me build me inner strength and connect put them on a path? They’re leading their own version of an epic life?

Jimn Kyles 6:41
Yeah, they’re so great. You know, even it’s, I didn’t know the stat what a staggering stat four times the men commit suicide. Did you find what was the key? You said? You mentioned faith? But was it because they were hopeless? Was it because they were isolated? Did you find or have you found in the studies the cause for that statistic?

Anthony 7:02
You just mentioned to them now, there is so many men that? How can it be that we’ve been what we’ve grown up thinking that men should be strong and silent? Well, and I’m not there to say that people should be taking sad selfies and posting online every day, that doesn’t really tune in with me. But having I always say, you know, a guy often doesn’t find an outlet to decompress, well, the more insular you are, or the more you know, just focusing on yourself, then you might not reach out to a friend or a colleague, or, you know, doesn’t matter, be a man of faith be a pastor be whatever it is, right? Finding an outlet for you, when things aren’t going well, to actually kind of express, you know, it hasn’t got to be this is my big point hasn’t got to be that a guy’s suicidal, it can take you back to me in the city. I wasn’t suicidal, I didn’t have mental health issues. In that response. I was just kind of pissed off with where I was, didn’t want to do my job anymore. And you know, I was unfulfilled, right? That’s the kind of guide that I want to catch them. They’re not when you’ve got to stage we’re thinking of taking their own life, because that becomes a completely different kind of animal altogether.

Jimn Kyles 8:11
Right? Well, that’s such a valid point. You know, if you get them before they get ready to stand on the cliff, man, you can actually change their life proactively instead of reactively. It’s not crisis management. It’s like, hey, let’s take some steps now, so that your life never gets to that. Now let me ask you this. How was your growing? How was your upbringing? Did you find that you? Did you have a great father example? Did you have a great father role? What did that look like?

Anthony 8:36
Yeah, I was really lucky. And just briefly, I spoke to him just to try to always want you to give his title but let’s call him a psychotherapist a week ago, and he spoke about the massive. He deals primarily with men, and it was something like 90 or 95% of the minute he deals with, have got some kind of disconnect with a father figure, or their father wasn’t around, or he was around and he was useless, you know. So I’m very lucky. A my dad is still alive, which I think is a blessing. And I’ve been, you know, I would consider him a friend. When I speak to him a couple of times a week. He’s helped me I’ve made I’ve certainly helped him in the last few years look at the world differently. Wow. And for me, that I think is priceless. Whereas I’ve said before mope say most all of my friends that I saw had the most issues as we were growing into men. All of them did not have either a father figure or a father figure that basically was a disgrace.

Jimn Kyles 9:37
Wow. Well, that’s interesting. Even if you had a father, you know, like me, I had a dad growing up and the end of his life, which he passed away two years ago was we were much closer but it wasn’t because he didn’t love me. He’d always say love me, but he worked all the time. So there was a love but there was also an absence. And so in that absence was a vacuum of hey, how do I how do I become a man? What is the man look like. And, you know, I think that’s even I read a book, the modern day night, and it talks about fathers, raising sons to live as a night like the man of character and Tegrity and all the values. And one of the things that talked about was helping sons transition from boy to man, you know, because at what point do you ever get this thing is like, oh, you’re a man. Now? I mean, is that at 18? Is that at 16? Is that at 13? And then how do you help them transition from a child or boys mentality to a man’s mentality, and most people never get it. So you got 40 year old children, that you know, that are men and babies. That’s right, bad babies that are just grown up and can now do whatever they want, which is typically sabotaging their own lives and the lives of people around them. So well, that’s great. Well, listen, I want to dive in today, I want to talk a little bit about supercharging. Your day by a morning routine, you know, you really captured me on this. And even through all this stuff, talk to me a little bit about what does that look like? What is is a morning routine? Important? First off?

Anthony 11:06
Yeah, I mean, I think I can only go on the let’s call it I always say researching great men, and out of the 100 and up to 120 hours or more than that of 120 different interviews with professional men who are, you know, succeeding in their own version of epic life? And I would say that, if not all, but nearly all of them have some kind of morning routine. And you and I know, it depends if it’s a man may be in his early 20s. And he hasn’t got children that can look very different sort of man in his 30s or 40s, that has got one two, or you know, we’ve got the third child, obviously, April. So one of the biggest things for morning routine is flexibility. Well, you know, because it’s very easy for other people to say, oh, you should do this, this, this, this and you go, yeah, when am I going to do that in between work, and kids and deadlines and trying to be healthy, etc, etc. So we developed it about four years ago was the first time I taught it, it was born out of the things that I was asked, What did I do? How did I kind of what’s the word? How did I manage or navigate all those years of getting up really a morning, and I’ll add to that I wasn’t just getting up early, I was sometimes getting in at three or four o’clock in the morning, we’re having one or two hours sleep, and then getting back up, and I’d be drunk as well, because you’re out drinking a lot. That’s back when I used to drink. And therefore, you know, when you’ve had a few hours sleep, but you still need to get to your desk at 645. And not just be there, but be sharp, because you’re dealing with millions of pounds, millions of dollars of other people’s money. And if you cook it up, you’re going to be in trouble. Right? So that’s where it originally was born from. And I was asked about what would be there was several other morning routines, which people are always welcome to have. But they seemed slightly complicated. And I looked at some myself and said, like most things in life, how can we take what’s there and simplify it? Right? Because I want it to be like, you know, specifics that you know what to do. But it’s got to be memorable and achievable. Because yeah, if you give someone loads of stuff to do some people achieve it, others will fail after a few days, and then never go back to it. So we looked at breaking down into the four components. And I know we’re going to talk about maybe, I mean, I’m, I had, I’ve had some great conversations recently, which are, I’m always open to adaptation, you will never say I’ve got the finished thing. It’s tweak it to make it better. Yeah. But the four pillars been move, breathe, think and drink. And I’ll happily break them briefly down for if you want, but that’s what the four is m BT D.

Jimn Kyles 13:47
Yeah. Well, I love it. And then you and I talked about, we’re gonna add a fifth one to this one. So we’ll add the fifth but tell us so the four pillars in BT de talked about what it is and implement. Now before you do that. What I love about what you said was to make it simple. Sometimes we try to implement new things in our life, but they’re so complex that only lasts for a couple of days. I love I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book atomic habits by James clear.

Anthony 14:16
Yeah. Speak to speak. Oh, it’s

Jimn Kyles 14:19
so good. So you always start off with an audible, then I’ll go back and read it. I’ve read the book multiple times, listen to it multiple times. But I love one of the ways he talks about he says when you build a new habit, the key at first is just showing up. In other words, just do the habit eat and his whole deal is two minutes. Like anything you want to start just do two minutes of it. It doesn’t have to be good doesn’t have to be perfect. Just do it. So So here’s here’s what happens. Like if I want to be someone who reads a book, you know, every week or whatever your goal is and every day I’m going to read just read for two minutes even if that’s just a page every day show up well then what will happen is you’ll go from doing to being on not just reading, I’m a reader, and it becomes who you are. And I love that because I know that’s what you’re talking about in your pillars, is, hey, this is not just something we’re gonna do, it’s gonna be so simple. It’s become who we are. And then that’s how it lasts a lifetime. So tell us about the four pillars.

Anthony 15:16
Yeah. So the important thing is, again, it let’s say, one of most fun things for me is when you sit down with someone to do mentoring coaching, because then you can take their situation right now, you know, because you never know what’s going on. Right? Some people I’ve worked with that are doing shift work. So really hard for them, if they’re going to work at 10 o’clock at night, and then working till eight o’clock in the morning, they can’t do the same as someone who is, you know, working a normal nine to five, but they can do the same things you might be at different times. Right? So move brain being. Again, I love exercise. So it’s, that’s easy for me. But for some people that find it harder to get up early move could be Could you do a few minutes of yoga? Could it be an hour in the gym? Could it go swimming? Could it be walking up and down the stairs in your house? Whatever it is that for you works and gets you going? Even if it’s the minimum effective dose, as we say, right, so

Jimn Kyles 16:08
10 Push Ups 10 Sit ups? Yep. 10 Jumping jacks,

Anthony 16:12
it comes back to I mean, again, I learned that from Tony Robbins like, you know, as opposed to what? So if someone said, Well, I can’t do much go, Well, what can you do? Well, well, I can’t do 20 hours, you know, sorry, 20 minutes of exercise? Well, as opposed to could you do 10 minutes? Well, I could do 10. Good. Let’s start with 10. Or let’s start with five. So that’s one of the big things, especially for executives who probably are getting up early. It’s like, you know, for one of them, it was very early, like can you walk to the either walk to the station, or instead of getting a taxi from your office or your you know, your station to the office? Can you walk or when you get, you know, we had one of the guys who we got him a exercise bike. So first in the morning, he used to have a team catch up 20 minutes, and I’m like, great, sit on your bike, have your zoom call here. And just take over something you’ve done. 1520 minutes of movement, you’re not sweating, you haven’t had to warm up and warm down. And at the end of the week, you’ve done over an hour of exercise without it anyway, you can see adaptability for the movies, the most important thing for me at the moment it people ask what do I do, I get up at 545 I contemplate what I’m doing whilst I have my which will come on to drink, what I do in the mornings, about 20 to 25 minutes of stretching, and then just bodyweight exercises, not intense stuff, just nice and slowly waking the body. It was still do heavy weights one or two times a week. And I’m very lucky that I’ve been doing that since I was in my mid 20s. So I’ve maintained muscle mass without doing too much these days. But just getting your body warmed up and moving is one of the big ones. Next up is breathe. And I’ve worked with and interviewed some breath work guys. And again, guess what their biggest thing is simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. And we came up with basically, as the guy said to me, you can basically pick there’s no right or wrong way, you know, to the amount of breathing. But if you said, let’s say eight seconds breathing in, then you’re holding it for four seconds, and then eight seconds exhaling out doing that nice and slowly for a minute or two. Or you could be sitting on the train could be sitting on a toilet, it could be doing whatever you want to do. But the breathe, it just enables you to just you know, we know how much energy you can pump through you when you breathe.

Jimn Kyles 18:28
Yeah, so and I love what you said earlier, too, when we were talking it gets the stale air out of you. You know, so tell me Have they I’m sure even cognitively, there are some studies about how just the oxygen to your brain the what it does to waking you up or waking your body, one of the big

Anthony 18:46
and I was thinking it’s sometimes you’ve got to do it to appreciate it. And when I would go to when I first started going to the Tony Robbins events, and they will talk about priming where you know, you really breathe fast and hard out of your nose. And I remember the first time we did it or watch webinars like our Singlish guys are very, very standoffish. And I remember doing it and feeling like I was pumped with energy. Wow. And one of the guys that I was how can I put it? I kind of teamed up with the one that day. He said he imagined that when you felt that energy as if you have like rays of light coming from your palms. And he was like, sounds corny, but he was like sending energy and love to people that he cared about it his kids, his family, whatever it is. And I remember doing and being like, wow. So I’ve now anchored. I listened to a certain song every morning when I’m breathing as well. And it just floods all of those memories back but the simplicity of just like breathe for eight seconds, hold it breathe out, get all the stale air out your lungs. Do that for machi a minute or two and you see how you do tingle if that makes sense. So let’s move. Breathe, I think for me is one of the big ones. And that is when you get you know have you got an ideas capture system. So we talked about doing a book Brain Dump, which is from a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen. And it is maybe monthly, getting everything out of your head that you’ve got to do and put them in lists. But on the on the smallest side of it day to day, it’s like, what are the 123 things I must get done today? And often they’re the things that you don’t want to do. It will then procrastinate about Oh, yeah. Which we’ve all done. We like, Oh, I really must do that. But I’ll have a coffee first. And I’ll do the stuff. You want easy stuff

Jimn Kyles 20:27
first. Yeah. So it’s, you got to do the hard stuff. First. I always try to Calendar, my heart things first, and leave the fluff for the afternoon after lunch. And well, I love it. So you’re saying think now. So you’re talking about, hey, we’re planning. we’re prioritizing, you know, it’s very interesting. There’s a planner, my mentor, one of my mentors got me. And it was interesting, because he said, what I started doing was every day, here’s the top three things that I have to get done today. Instead of trying to plan all these listed to do things, he said, If I can just get these top eight. So that’s what he does. He says, What’s my top three for today? And I write them down. And by five o’clock, if I’d hit those top three, regardless of anything else, my day has been successful, because he is as he says, there’s always something vying for your time. And if we’re not careful, we’ll let the urgent rob us of the important. So what’s more important? What’s my top three? That’s what I’m focused on. Sounds like that’s what you’re saying.

Anthony 21:28
That’s a no. So I mean, we could break each of these down, because, you know, often do corporate talks for like, an hour week, because the think, again, beings, you know, you can expand on that so much, but like you said, if you’re like, Okay, I can only you know, I’ve only got enough brain space to think of what is the most important things you like, great, like, say anything else is a bonus. But if you can get those bits done that is you’re always you’re already on the path. And you know, so that’s move, breathe, think. And then the last one is drink. Now I’m a big lover of coffee. And I’ve done it once or twice where I’ve said, You know what, I’m not having coffee anymore. ridiculous, ridiculous from me, because I just realized Life is too short to stop you from from those kinds of things. So I had to cut myself down to just one coffee a day, but it’s you know, I always drink very good quality coffee. There’s a guy, Dave Asprey, then if you’ve ever so he writes that he came up with the bulletproof coffee and a Bulletproof Diet and stuff. And I’ve been out to his one of his shops in them in Hollywood, and what have you, but you know, the, the importance of good quality coffee. But the important thing is, when you start your day, you’ve hopefully been asleep for 5678 hours. And what your body isn’t in need of is coffee and a stimulant in what is in need of his replenishment. So again, we got very simple, either purely filtered water now I don’t know the waters like in the States, but there’s really nasty stuff in our water over here, the powers that be will deny it, but when they’re putting fluoride or things like that in people’s water and dumbing them down, then that’s not not good. So we will say that we use a really great water filter. And if not, you’ve also got warm water with lemon, or warm water with apple cider vinegar. Or even if you’ve got your own version of like a good healthy juice or something like that, yes, starting your day replenishing your body. As opposed to adding in, you know, something that’s going to kind of stimulate straightaway is again, simple takes two minutes can be prepped the night before, you can have the kettle with the water in it. And you could have apple cider vinegar, they are pressed the button tip in Bosch drink and you’re done. You can take it with you in a flask. And that’s your move, breed think of drink in a nutshell, simple, measurable, achievable, and you know, no excuses for not being able to do it.

Jimn Kyles 23:41
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, and the only other thing I would add to that is prayer meditation. You know, for me, that’s such an important part. And I do I’m a little bit out of the order that you put them in, but I usually drink the water first, and get up out of bed, drink the water and then start through my morning routine and breathing probably hasn’t been as much of a priority. But that’s one of the things most people fall down on. Yeah, it really is. Now the it’s funny that you were even talking about I’ve not never I’ve not necessarily heard it in the morning routine. Now. I’ve been in counseling for almost a decade. You know, I have a therapist and a life coach and a psychologist or psychiatrist and one of the things we breathe in to calm ourselves down. You know, if you feel yourself getting escalated, anytime we get escalated anything over a five, you know, one to 1010 being a just, you know, snap, Oh, yeah. And then. So anytime you get over a five, you now have a response of fight flight or freeze. And so the truth is, you’re no good and whether people see it or not, if you know that you’ve got to calm yourself down to actually say it takes about 20 minutes to calm yourself down once you’ve been escalated. So to hear it as a morning routine, you know, typically I’ll go exercise and the thinking strategy what I’ll do is I’ll take We pray first. And then I meditate on Scripture. And then like you said, which which I like to is the brain dump. And typically for me, the brain dump starts to try to happen when I’m praying, you know, it’s anytime you’re trying to pray, a million thoughts come in your mind. So I’ve just learned to have a tablet, write it all down, keep praying. And they’d come back and hit the the top priorities. Well, that’s fantastic. So now, doing this morning routine, what have you seen to have success? So someone’s listening right now they’re like, cool. I’m thinking about, I’m gonna move, breathe three, think drink and pray. in whatever order I want. Just two minutes each. So about 10 minute routine, when you add them all for the for the day. What have you seen to help build consistency over time? Like, is there anything that that would give them a, Hey, do this think about this, or encouragement to help them so that they can be consistent in it?

Anthony 25:54
Yes, the first one is, and we’ve talked about before, but stalking so you could say, You know what, I want to implement all these, but could I just start with one of them? And, and most of us realize a lot of them we do. But we just tweak it. I mean, to state the obvious, hopefully most of us breathe when we get up in the morning. So that can be an easy one to it just becomes instead of you just breathing. And obviously you don’t think about it saying I will actually can I find that little space to do something. For me. I mean, it’s a big one. Reason I have cold showers in the morning as well. And I hasten to add, I don’t jump in the cold shower, not often I have a warm shower, and then a cold shower. And for me, it’s like your first win of the day. And it’s your first little challenge where your mind will go. Not today. No, no, no, not today, because I’m in a rush, or it’s too cold or this that. And so many times I have to go Hold on a minute. Like, my, I’m doing this. And so each one of those little things is one of your first wins. If you have off now five wins first in the morning, great. The other thing

Jimn Kyles 26:56
a little a rocky, yeah, you’re a champion.

Anthony 26:59
Whereas if you’ve you know, and this is their big thing, if you don’t manage all of them, could you manage to out of the four or five, you know, anything is better than nothing. But I think for one of the big things for me is clarity. When you wake up in the morning, those what are the things I must do today, there’s nothing when I say nothing worse, there’s lots of things that are much worse, painfully. But those things when you don’t feel like they achieved what you should have done that day you failed. So clarity, I think is one of the big ones. And what we see with the exercise, especially some of the let’s say that the office work is is it starts off with two minutes of exercise. But often people go well, actually, I could do more. Right? Okay, well, what could you do? Well, actually, I could do and whatever your enjoyment is, be it yoga, dance, gym, running, cycling, swimming, whatever it is, it just gets people started on that journey of living a healthier life and a more energized life. And with energized, I linked that to our online course, which is about if you want to do great stuff and serve the people around you kids, congregation, community, you know, colleagues, staff, etc, you are going to need lots of good energy, because you know, the world will throw you things to suck that energy away. Right and cents all

Jimn Kyles 28:15
day every day. Well, and I love what you said you said stacking. James clear talks a little bit about this even habit stacking where you do you add a new habit to a habit you already have. So it’s an existing trigger to start. So maybe you brush your teeth every day. So it habits that could be something like, Hey, when I’m done brushing my teeth, I’m gonna spend two minutes breathing. And so you just it’s like you’re stacking it. And then it’s also, Hey, I can’t do all five. But let me start with three. Let me do and then add the fourth one and the fifth one. So you’re saying find something that you can do consistently, do that build upon it, and then find a way to attach it to things that you’re already doing that create the habit that is perpetual.

Anthony 28:57
And that’s and you know what that makes it more achievable. I read a really great book called the Miracle Morning, which is a guy called Hal Elrod, an excellent book. But that had like seven steps. And I was trying to follow it for a while and I realized I was putting too much pressure on myself. Because I was like, I haven’t done you’ve got a journal, you’ve got a read, you’ve got an all these things are great, but I was trying to be realistic. And then we had kids and you know, our, our first child didn’t sleep for a whole year. I mean, our second child didn’t sleep, I foolishly said and you know, maybe parents or you know, even if the grandparents listening will laugh at this because after the first one I said, There’s no way the second one can be as bad as the first one. And our second baby didn’t sleep for three years didn’t have a full night’s sleep. Wow. So those are the times when you need your kind of emergency cloud crutch I should say off in the mornings. You’d have great intentions the night before, but in the morning you wake up and I’m like I don’t have much cognitive ability what’s what can I do? Well, I can move very gently, I can breathe. And think that doesn’t take anything or, and water. And that’s, that’s, that’s my first when on a day when you just feel like you’re dying and you want to inject coffee in your eye.

Jimn Kyles 30:15
In your veins put a bag. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that is so good. Well, and you know, I’ve just I love it. I love the fact that we’re waking up, it’s, we’re intentional, we’re doing something that’s going to help us win for the day. And now let me ask you this thing, because you and I were talking earlier, and this is I’m just going to add this as like a bonus portion. But we talked about building inner strength. And I love the three things that you told me earlier. If someone’s listening, male, female, young, older, old, however you want to, you know, whatever, how is it that you would teach them or coach them or say, Hey, here’s now we know, there’s a whole lot of other things that go into it. And I’m gonna put the website down in the link, they can go and check it all out. And I encourage you to do so. What are the three things that helped to build inner strength in a person tell us about that?

Anthony 31:06
I think one of the first ones is a desire to learn. Now, as we get older, I mean, I focus on men, but we’re talking about everybody here is that it sometimes it becomes harder and harder, because we get stuck in our own little world to be open to other ideas, and be it you know, meditation, be it reading people that you might never have, or having opinions, you might not have kind of taken on board before. And I think I’ve met people and it sounds harsh that say, Oh, I you know, I want to build in a strength and you go, Okay, well, we’re going to start off by sorting your morning routine. And then we’re like, what, what’s that got to do with the new site? Because all those little things are going to add up to your first wins of the day. Right? And they will, then you’ll see how much they want to build in a strength because they aren’t willing to do the hard work, if that makes sense. Yeah. One the other thing for me is, and again, I’ve learned this from the many, many men I’ve interviewed, is about getting around the right people. And you know, for me, the lock downs, which I thought were a very bad idea, and unless you’ve got your head in under a rock, you’d have realized by the statistics that they had a devastating effect on mental health, especially children, which is a real, how can I put it in I’m very passionate about, you know, adults can make their own decisions, but children are looking to us to be a shining light. And if you’re looking on direction, then that’s not a good situation. But getting around the right people. We all know people that are energy vampires, mood Hoover’s funds sponge, as I heard it called as well. And, you know, be in your community or your business or what have you, surrounding yourself with people that want to have a positive impact, and are interested in their own version of living an epic life, I think is so important. Because there’s so much empathy around, you know, I mean, one of the big things for me is I say to guys, if I’m doing mentoring is right, stop watching the news and stop watching TV, right? In a no newspapers. And sometimes they’ll be like, well, how will I know what’s going on in the world? And I say, Well, firstly, if you watch the news, you don’t know what’s going on in the world. That’s funny. You’re given a filter of what’s going on the world, you’re being shown what someone wants you someone’s version. Yes, it and usually it’s got an agenda behind it. So you know, that’s another thing is allowing yourself time to contemplate what you want in life, and then gaining clarity from that. But men, especially men, you know, often aren’t open to that. But people are so busy with mobile phones, with the news with deadlines with kids, and I get it. Everybody’s got that stuff juggling, or you know, juggling, or spinning plates that giving yourself and as I heard it being available, to think about maybe spirituality, and just some deeper questions is one of the biggest things is availability, taking the time to be open to looking at this stuff.

Jimn Kyles 34:06
Oh, that’s great. So I heard three things, personal development. So if you want to build inner strength, you got to have some personal development, it’s not just going to happen through osmosis. You’re not just going to be in one place, and all of a sudden, you got to be willing to do the work, develop yourself. Second thing I heard was relationships. I need to stop some relationships. And I need to start new ones. And yeah, so and I always look at relationships are the currency of life for me. And everywhere I’ve ever been, I mean, even you and I is a great example. We got connected through social media. I liked what you were doing. You liked what I was doing, we got connected, and now we’re better for it. We’re pouring into each other. It’s it’s the currency of life. It’s like man, everything God’s ever done in my life has always been through relationships. So that sounds like the second thing. The third thing is and I want to really make sure they heard it was time to content pleat and reflect. Light. That’s so in other words, we got to turn off the noise. That’s what I heard you to say, shut off the news, shut off the TV, turn off the noise. And now you’ve got to really begin to think about your life on your own. You’ve got to reflect on how well you’re doing. Reflect on what today is going to look like what tomorrow is going to look like. And it’s interesting that most of you talked about a statistic that I’m really passionate about. You said, living on autopilot, you know, just kind of drifting through life Marks and Spencer did a study and surveyed 3000 people, I write about it in my book, and they said up to 96% of the 3000 people they interviewed said they were on odd they were living life on autopilot. Think about that autopilot. So I always get this visual, that I’m in the front seat in the driver’s seat of a car that is self driving. I’m not even driving it. It’s a car that drives itself and I’m in the driver’s seat with the steering wheel gas pedals as a passenger just passing through wherever it is, it’s taking me that’s how people are living life just as a passenger in their own life. Whatever their boss tells them to do. Whatever happens the reactive not proactive. Like you said, whatever the news tells us whatever Pete tell people tell us we just Okay, okay, okay. And made it sounds like to me that you woke up. I love the fact 20 years you’re in a job here you are. A I’m not gonna live my life for anybody else. I’m going to come alive with passionate I help people I’m going to train people. And then the thing that really captured me is the focus on men. I love what you’re doing developing men, even if you are in the UK, I love it. Because here I am. I’m learning from you and being developed.

Anthony 36:47
You know what it’s an I know, we mentioned it to start with the big thing is helping men by getting you know, for women that might be listening, it applies to them, but we just like to, you know, niche down with men, is that one of the big things is like how do you live your own version of an epic life. And it was so important because and I’ve said before, you know your version, my version, and anybody else’s actually is completely different. So you can listen and learn from other people. But you’ve got to apply it directly to you. And look at it. I know I will say men, we all go through phases, and they might not be 10 year phases, there might be a few years where you love something, you do something. I had a phase where I loved doing obstacle course racing. So like the Spartan Races and stuff. When I represented the country, I flew to Ohio, and you know, was in the world championships. Wow. And I did that for four years, I did I know something like nearly 100 obstacle course races, some short one, some, like 25 mile ones. And then one day I just went, I can’t be bothered anymore. And and there’s my four years of, you know, passionate kind of, you know, exercise and real dream of what I was doing. And I was like I’m done with it. But what we say for guys, you know, what is it that I mean? We go back to contemplation. What is it that you want, because me in the city, I wanted more money bigger bonus, a BMW convertible, you know, a townhouse in a nice executive development, and a nice Hugo Boss suits. That was kind of my thing. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But very soon afterwards, I started to move with Emma towards now we live in a in a quiet village with a lovely church. And that’s pretty much it in the village, you’ve got, you know, we’ve got chickens, we’re growing our own food, we’ve

Unknown Speaker 38:31
learned how to grow lots of different stuff. We’ve got two kids, we’re homeschooling another one on the way. And here’s the thing, we earn a lot less money, but we’re much happier.

Jimn Kyles 38:40
Right? Wow. Well, isn’t that interesting? We we climb the ladder in life only to realize it’s leaning against the wrong building. You know, it’s the success that everybody else but success is so empty. And I would even add another portion into that which you and I talked about, you know, I’m a pastor, and I think Ecclesiastes song salt or Solomon is the one he was the wisest man in the world says that God plants eternity in the heart of men. And so there’s a part on the inside of every person, whether man, woman or child, that no matter what you fulfill in life, it’ll always come up empty until the God of the universe fills a portion of your life. And so that’s one of the callings that I have is, hey, I want you to meet the goals of your life and all that. But again, just realize if if God’s not a part of that, if he’s not in your life and a part of your life, you’re still going to lean against that building and realize it was unfulfilled. So and you and I have had some of these conversations and I just I love it. I know you’ve been going to the local church and you’re in your village and I’ve just I love the message. I love what you’re doing. You and I just instantly connected. Let me do this. Let me give you one last segment, just give our listeners a final charge and then I’ll tell them where they can find you on the website down in the description. So,

Anthony 40:03
yeah, I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned, I mean, a is that men don’t get together to talk very much. But giving to your community first, I mean, you know, family, first thing community in my, in my view, but I, it pains me to see people who are so taken in by the media as example, who will say, but I’m, I’m going off to fight a cause. And you say That’s very noble of you, but what are you doing on your own doorstep? You know, what are you doing for your community, for your, for your elders, for the people around you that will be there when you’re going to need them in the next couple of years. And for me, that is one of the big things. And I didn’t do that when I was younger. But now I look around and say, you know, build your community blocks first, and then worry about saving the rest of the world because that is the you know, one of the fundamental parts of families having secure safety around you that you can count on.

Jimn Kyles 41:03
I love it. So in other words, take what we’ve learned today, and then make someone else better teach it, live it out, help someone in other words, be a contributor, not a consumer, and makes a difference in the world that you live in. Well, it’s been so great to have you on my friend. I know our listeners have enjoyed it, they can find you at home man academy.com. And they can learn all about it. You’ve got all kinds of online classes and downloads and just want to encourage you if you haven’t already checked it out, go check it out. The links will be in the description as well. And we are so glad to have had you on the podcast today. I look forward to staying in touch. If you have enjoyed today, I’m going to ask you to do a couple of things with us subscribe to the podcast, wherever it is that you consume the content. If it’s on YouTube, just hit the subscribe button. iTunes just hit the subscribe button it’ll automatically be delivered to wherever it is you consume your content. Next thing is would you share the podcast? It means the world to me if you shared it with someone else that might need what you heard today. You think it’ll benefit them? And then last would you rate and review it? If this content has been beneficial to you? Would you just go in? Give us a rating and a review and let people know how great it is. It helps us to get the word out so I can’t wait to be with you next week. Until then keep moving your life forward. Bye bye. All right.

Unknown Speaker 42:28
Excellent stuff.

Jimn Kyles 42:29
Yeah. Come on, man.