029 | Essential Non-Negotiables for Life w/ Tom Nichols

Hello, good people, and welcome back to life is sound. Today I've got a guy that I've not seen for a long time, and it's good to see you, brother. Good to see you too, Mr. Tom Nichols. We went to school together, and I think I was looking at a photo not long ago, you know, for from our last year in school where we've all got our suits on at the formal, and I was like, wow, time is flying. But I'm glad you've come today because I asked you to do the podcast. You're someone that from your post on Instagram social media, I've always felt super inspired. So I want to say a big hello to you today, bro. If you want to, just say hello to listeners and who you are in your world and what you do. So I'm Tom. I'm a personal trainer. I've been a personal trainer for going on ten years now. Started as Fitness Advisor, working for working for Banner Times, and then quickly sort of built up quite a good client base, went freelance, and then I've just been doing that for sort of the last ten years. It's interesting, really, because me and my partner list, we're trying to change to a more online method of personal training. And they ask you where we hired this business coach. They asked us to identify our niche. And it's something that, I've always been a bit like that doesn't sit particularly well with me, to be honest, because I'm not like, a business guy, I'm not a branding guy. So I've always just been like, I'm a personal trainer, I'm in the gym. If you need my service, let me help you with whichever tool I think is going to be best for you. And then being asked to sort of niche into branding, we've had to start to look at a lot more kind of what our identity is in the fitness market. So we like to think of ourselves as trying to move well, feel well, perform well, as well as look well. And that's kind of our values as a company or as a product is to try and try and get people to do those things rather than just the aesthetics of just sort of like, trying to look big and ripped, et cetera. So, yeah, that's probably how we describe ourselves. Incredible. So there's a question I've been asking guests straight out the gate. What's important to you? What's important to me as a personal trainer or as a person? As you? Yeah, well, being is important to me. So I think that when I was first away in Vietnam, just before the pandemic, I remember thinking that I wanted to dedicate my life to feeling good. Do you know what to feel? Not to feel happy or not to feel successful in any way, but just to feel, like, at peace and feel good. And that's something that exercise has always brought for me. More than anything in terms of I've never really been a big sports guy. I'm not trying to increase my sprint time or my power or anything like that. I'm not trying to be a bodybuilder and sort of get jacked and ripped, but what I do want is to feel good. And that being involved in fitness has been the thing that's, like, that's my antidote to any sort of struggle, really, is to head quite quickly towards fitness. And that's just always been whatever else has been going on in my life. That's always just been that sort of that rolling thing. So yeah, I would say, well being. What was the driving force that made you kind of arrive at that point where you're like, this is what I value, this is what I want more of in life, more calm, more peace, more joy, well being. What drove you to reach that point? I think that I'm a bit of a thinker, and I don't mean that in terms of on any high intellectual level, but I don't just go through life and see what happens next. I'm not the person that's just like, yeah, we're going to do this and then we're going to do that. Whatever's happened in my life, I've always had to think about it quite deeply and question it and sort of see and see, why have I gone down this? I think that you mentioned high school. Before leaving high school, I remember getting really poor GCSE results and feeling really shit about myself. Just feeling like I was just a loser, just basically like a bit of a failure right out the gate. And I was trying to work out even then, what was it that made you get such shit GCSE results? And it was probably because I was trying to be instead of being in school working hard, I was trying to be the guy that was funny or having a good time, or even as embarrassing as it is to say the bad man. Not saying that I was at all, but that was like the aim, I think. And that was the aim for a lot of people of our generation, which I was a failure at that as well. And I think that over time, you start to go like, well, okay, what am I aiming for here? The standard one is that you aim for financial success, so you go after financial success and you might attain some financial success, but it doesn't really fill that. Like, I've never been a rich guy, but when I changed from being a gym instructor to over to a freelance personal trainer, my wages went up drastically more than I ever could have imagined. And I was like, unbelievable how much I was making. Not in comparison to anybody else, but just in comparison to the minimum wage that I was on before, but it was also the darkest time of my life as well. That period of time when I first went freelance in September 2014. Those six months, the first six months of that were I would say that was the most darkest, depressing time of my life. And I remember thinking, like, this thing that I've been looking for, this validation of, like, yeah, you're smashing it, you've got more cash than you've done before, your business is going well and you still feel like shit, you still feel like, in fact, you even feel worse. So what is going on here? And that made me question sort of what my motivations were and what I actually did want out of life. Whenever I've gone back to that idea of wanting well being or wanting peace, then that's only ever been solidified. Do you know what I mean? That's only ever been confirmed, it's never been questioned by myself. It's always been like, no, that is actually what you're after, that is what you want. So, yeah, that's what I'd say. I think that's great, because I was thinking yesterday, I said a moment, I was like, bro, if you had all the money in the world right now, how would you feel? And it was just a reminder that you have to consistently work on yourself, because if someone dropped quarter of a million your bank tomorrow, you'd get to do things you probably wanted to do for a while, but at some point, that's going to become the norm. So when you've shifted from what you said, probably, like, average wages, to, Whoa, this is crazy, loads can go on for us, like, do I deserve this money? Am I deserving of it? Whoa, I've got this money now. Is it changed me as a person? Oh, I feel shit. Then you realise now you still have to do the work when these things that we all aspire to get, we all get taught, once you've got money, you're good. And then if money comes, even if it's not millions yet, you might just have a nice increase of a wage. Your business is flourishing. All of a sudden, that presents a whole new set of questions to us. And it's good that you've recognised that you're continuing on the path of well being. It's something I was asking myself recently. Like, if all of a sudden you woke up tomorrow and everything was the way you've envisioned it to be, podcast massive money in the bank beyond what you ever thought, are you going to ignore all the work you've been doing to keep your mind in the right place? And I think that's such an important thing that not a lot of people discuss and talk about. So I think it's really important that you've recognised that as well. I had an experience whilst I was in Thailand where I got a bit of a moment of clarity from it and I realised that what we're all looking for throughout any endeavour that we do, whether it's taking care of your kids building your business, buying a new watch or going to a show or whatever. What we're all looking for, essentially, is peace. We're all looking for that moment where we can go and just sort of relax into it. Because if you think about it, even the guy that's obsessed with buying the new watch, really what he wants that watch for is to validate himself so that he can look around his peers and say to himself, like, I'm doing okay. I'm okay here. Right, okay. And the thing that really was the sort of big moment for me was that I realised that that moment is actually available to us at all times. Any moment. If you practise going into that moment where you can just go like, all right, it's okay, and just let your shoulders relax, take a breath, calm yourself down, that moment is available to you all time. So we spend our lives from the moment before we even realise that we're looking for it all the way up until our deathbed, trying to get to that moment of peace when it's actually just there, any moment you want. It so true. Yeah. You just brought something else up. Like the other day, I had quite an important meeting with somebody who you could say is of a stature in a certain world. It was an online meeting and I think it was at

00 and it was like 152. I feel tired, I got time to get a coffee. Then my mind, I went, Why don't you just spend seven minutes just meditating? Yeah. Before jump into that moment where you're fully relaxed. So when you're on that call at two, you're entering as a peaceful version of yourself, and it's just taking that moment, like, coming to the end of the meditation and being like, when I'm on that call, I'm going to be the best version of myself. And the call was fine, but it's just ridding that energy that I could feel that was just coming up from that place of doubt. And it essentially is suffering. You're creating suffering for yourself. Illusionary thoughts that aren't real yet. This thing's over here. And I'm going, oh, well, what if what if I don't have a coffee? Do I need more? And boom, boom. I went, Whoa, come on, man. You've got access to that place that you're talking about at any time. It's literal magic. And we don't get taught this? No. And it's really scary, and I'm hoping future generations are learning this. And it is taught to young kids, because imagine, we knew that from, like, primary school, that whenever life came and slapped you, you could just go and just spend five minutes with yourself. It's so important. There's a question I wanted to ask you in the world of what you do. PTN a lot of teaching, showing people how things are done to get the best out of your body, out of your mind. So you're given a lot to people. What has been one of your biggest takeaways from your clients? What have you learned from them? So I've worked in bannertines in the Gay Village or around the corner from Gay Village. So, like, quite a high percentage of gay population, a lot of foreign students. So I've had a lot of students coming from China and then your average. So what I'm trying to get across with that is that I've dealt with a really wide array of people working in a city centre gym. You get more access to people than someone, say, working in more of a suburban area. Like when the first gym I ever worked at had, remember sort of breaking people down into, like, there was like three or four categories of people, you could quite easily fit every member into one of those categories, whether it's in Banner times that was completely out of the window. There was like 1520 different categories of people and they would be loosely, that would be loose. I think that what I've realised is that no matter who you're looking at, even if you're looking at the person that you think's got the most sordid life to the person that seems like the most scatterbrain person, everybody's dealing with their own shit and everybody's just trying to there's a quote from Ramdas that says we're all just walking each other home. Yeah, I love that. I used that on a podcast last week. Yeah, I've taken the podcast weekly, shorter Episodes, where it's me talking to the listener directly like this. And I wasn't aware it was his quote, but I've heard that and it stuck with me because we are and we live in a time where we're all arguing along the way and it doesn't have to be that way. Yeah, he's got a few good ones, man. I'm not a particularly spiritual person. I'm not like a big believer in anything or anything like that. But again, going back to what we're talking about before with well being, I do try to seek out teachers from everywhere. If I can find something from this person, I might not study Budhist philosophy and be fully into the whole belief system or even know about it. But if there's certain teachings that make sense to me and go, that makes sense, then I'll grab that and I'll hold onto that and I'll use that in times of times of despair. You know what I mean? And that we're all just walking each other home is something that speaks to me quite deeply, really. I love that. For me, I see spirituality as like, the warrior path. You're going to go through some crazy shit and you're going to be planted in darkness, and in that darkness, you're going to do a hell of a lot of learning that when you come out, you're a complete different person. You've transformed. And I think even I have a resistance to calling myself a spiritual person. And when you say I don't class myself as a spiritual person, I think I do exactly what you do. I see something might be from a religion. I go amazing. Let me cherry pick that. I'll see a quote there from a teacher, a mentor, someone I've followed for years and has just connected with where I've been at in that point of life. And I'll go, yes. Cherry pick that. And I'll take it. And I think I understand. You say you're not a spiritual person. I don't want to put any labels onto you, but I think it's very similar, probably what we do, and especially if you're somebody who thinks and you like to break things down and process, why was I like that at that age when I made that decision? What was the reason behind that? And you can just find the OD people, especially with the power of the Internet now that just click with exactly what you were thinking at that point. And that is a spiritual path. It's just I understand the resistance of wanting to label it because there's a whole world underneath that world that you probably just don't connect to or see yourself in at all. And I'm very much like that. I see it, I appreciate it, I acknowledge it. You guys do what you're doing. But I'm also very separate to it. There's parts I identify with, but I'm also very separate. So the spiritual path is the warrior path. It's learning things along the way and completing your own journey and, well, adding to it, not completing to it, add into it to go forward the way. I like to think about. Have you ever heard of Sam Harris? I think I've watched some talks, but not in depth. He's quite a big podcaster and not someone that I agree with, like anybody, totally. But he talks about living an examined life, and that's what I try to do. I try to live a life where I'm not just going through it and just acting on the whims of my desires and like I said before, wanting to gain status and wanting to gain pleasure and wanting to just wake up and do whatever I feel like I want to do in that moment, but live a more examined life and watch. Like, actually, wait, hold on a minute. Why are you doing that? What's your motivations to do that? Is that the best thing for you overall? Is that the best thing for everybody in your life? And sometimes the selfish path is the best thing to do in that moment, and sometimes you've got very little control over it, and we're all fallible. But at least I want to have examined that and not just gone through it. Let's talk about movement as well, because I know you said you're a PT, but from when I've seen your journey and what you started to post years back, really natural movement that would be, like, so intriguing that I'd be like, this is incredible, because you're just doing a lot of body movements. You got, like, obviously kettlebells involved and weights and stuff. But what's been really inspiring for me, as the years have been rolling on and the numbers are creeping up for us, it's been great to see you so in shape and so dialled in and be like, that's achievable at this age. And I think men of art and women, but as a man, I'm speaking from my perspective. It's really great to see what's achievable at this age when it comes to physicality. And I find your posts, like, really inspirational. I might be on the couch eating a bar of chocolate and I'm like, Tom, man, you're smashing it. I need to fix up. But it's great to see that I'm. On the couch whilst I'm posting it. Just showing all the good bits of life. Exactly. Just photoshop, man. Just don't even train. Just photoshop things. Let's talk a bit about what you do, because you were the first person that I saw post that type of stuff. I might have seen bits online, but you were the person that I saw that I knew that was consistently doing the natural movement of the body. Yeah, it's almost a little bit embarrassing to tell you the origins, if I'm honest, because there's not anything deep or kind of, like, philosophical about it. I was basically involved in personal training as a way to because I always enjoyed training and mainly because it helped my mentality more than anything else. It was like fitness was the thing. So I was working at a recruitment consultancy, which I was not suited to at all. Working in an office, it just felt great. And I'd go to the gym after work and I'd be on a treadmill, just running like beaming bro. I'm so happy to be there. And I was just like, you know what? I didn't really believe I could become a personal trainer because I didn't believe that I had the patience for it. Which is funny, because actually, now I feel like patience is one of my main virtues as a trainer. But before I did it, I never thought that I had the patience for it. But I just decided, well, look, I might as well give it a go because anything's better than doing this recruitment shit, I'd rather be unemployed. So started going down that road, started training people and just doing what the sort of more traditional styles of training back on buyers and your chest and tried that. It's basically bodybuilding style training, which there's nothing wrong with, but that was sort of what I was doing and I was getting a little bit disillusioned with it. I was getting a bit bored of the whole thing. And then I saw a post from, I think it was Aubrey Marcus, who has a company called on It, and he was doing a Kettlebell flow that another guy on Instagram who's massive on Instagram now, called Primal Soldier was doing. And he was just working out with kettlebells. And I just thought it was fucking so cool, man. I was like looking at it, I was like that just looks to me like a cool thing to do. Not like what the results it gives you just like the actual process of doing it started messing around with kettlebells basically based on that Instagram post kettlebells are heavily associated with mobility, which is I suppose defined as like the body's ability. So it's like, you know, you've got flexibility, which is your joints range of motion. Mobility is like your usable range of motion so you can't just like flexibility might just be that you have to pull your arm into a stretch but there's mobility is the ability for the muscle to move your arm and be in control of that. So I started to dig deeper into that. And then as I was doing that, you drink the Kool Aid a little bit. It's like you start to hear things like, movement is the prerequisite for any activity that you want to do. So any physical activity that you want to do, whether it's jiu, jitsu, rugby, weight training, one thing that they've all got in common is that you need the ability to move. So let's take it back down to the basics of like forget about doing an exercise, just think about moving. And that really spoke to me. I've basically managed to keep a lot of my mobility as I've got older and as I've got stronger and as I've got bigger. Managed to keep my mobility, basically, because it's a non negotiable. There's a certain amount of time spent in my daily routine that's just dedicated to simply just keeping my joints. I'm never going to get any bigger muscles from it. I'm never going to lose any body fat from it. It's not going to do me any benefit at all, except that it's going to keep my joints nice and supple and keep that ability to move. And my aim, my goal is to be in my sixty s. Seventy s if I'm lucky enough to live that long and still be able to not be limited by my movement, but still be free to do as I feel. Do you feel like the ages we're getting to I'm 37, you say me we're 37, so the ages we're getting to now, I'm becoming really aware of this. I've had back problems, which has been absolutely fine for the past. I want to say maybe coming up to twelve months, because when I started this podcast, I remember my back was really bad and I speak words of positivity to my back. So if someone's not seen me for a while and they go Bro, how's your back? I go, Absolutely blessed man. Good. Back's fine. That's a good idea, doing well, because. I believe in the power of words. If I go, oh, it's not bad at the moment, I'm inviting oh at the moment. So you want an opening for me to come back. And I'm really aware at the moment of I've worked from home pretty much since the start of the pandemic, and now I'm at a point where I've done the thinking, created the podcast, had all these ideas come into me, I'm like, Right, what, have I been neglecting my body? Yeah. Luckily, I've got a decent physique that as soon as I start exercising, I can see it straight away. But I'm really aware at these ages now about mobility, because the next 20 years, like you said, if we're blessed to get there, is crucial. So I'm starting a new morning routine where I just get up, get dressed and get out, go for a 30 minutes walk, get the body warmed up, then come back and have my water and coffee. And now it's going to be a non negotiable, like you said, because you see those people as they're getting older and, like, out walking what you're walking for. I'm at that age now. I'm realising the importance of that 30 minutes, faster paced walk in the morning. Hopefully I'll get to a point where that's a gym visit, but I'm just starting a new morning ritual. But you're probably better doing the walk than a gym. Than a gym visit. So there's so much research in the moment that's come out about the importance of sunlight in your eyes as you wake up to set your circadian rhythm. It sets all your body's functions in place. It affects mood, affects cognition, it affects your sleep. So your butts are like if you view sunlight. And when I say sunlight, I mean, we don't get much in Manchester, but if you daylight makes it even more important. So if it was bright and sunny outside, at some point during the day, you're going to get that sunlight into your eyes. You probably only need five or ten minutes. Living where we live, you need like, half an hour, maybe an hour, to get the required amounts of sunlight to be at that optimal level. So it sets that clock starting like, 16 hours later. Then you start to feel sleepy, you start to settle into yourself. And so much more research coming out about how important sleep is as well. So that 30 minutes walk, I can't emphasise enough how important is I think working in the fitness industry, you sometimes start to believe that everybody is aware of the same things that you're aware of. So this what I'm talking about now seems like old news, this getting daylight in your eyes early morning. But what I'm realising is that there's a whole bunch of people out there that aren't as obsessed with health and wellness as I am, that this is new information for them. They're like, well, what? Really? You think I should get some state light in my eyes for me, doing a walk in the morning? I'm quite lucky in that I've done that intuitively for many, many years. Amazing. So, yeah, so it's just been something that I just sort of had wake up and if the weather wasn't terrible, then I would just find myself leaving the house and getting out and going for a walk. Not because I wanted to get the daylight in my eyes to set my sarcadian rhythm, but just because that's what I felt like doing. And then as more and more research started to come out about how important it is, I'm, like, validated. I knew that. But, yeah, I'm happy to hear that you do that, because it is really important and I think that a movement practise for me. It's like, I can't believe that there is anybody out there that doesn't have movement practise, because it's so integral to my life. And I don't just mean having to do 30 minutes of mobility, whatever. I mean, like, anything that does get you moving. I just think it's unbelievable that people don't and I think that people don't realise how much better they would feel if they did do a little bit each day. 100%. And I think another realisation for me is bro. You're not gone to the gym for a while, there's always a worry about the back popping or something going wrong, so I always do, like, gentle stuff. But there's the awareness now of the more I do, the better that's going to be reinforcing strength around that area, knowing that you're in a good shape. I'm being blessed that without exercise, I still maintain a decent shape. And I'm at the point where it's like, right, there's no excuse now because I feel like a lot of people can get out of shape and go, there's just no point. This is really tough to get from this point. So I'm really aware at the ages that we're at, feeling gratitude for waking up in the morning. So my new routine, I've done a lot of it anyway, but this is the new routine. I wake up, sit on the end of my bed, I stretch my body all different ways, give thanks for waking up, my eyes woke, I'm here. Thank you for another day. And just sit, take a moment and then just get up, get dressed, get out. I don't need to brush my teeth. Who am I speaking to? Just get up, get out, get your body moving ASAP. Just get out. Throw something in the headphones if you want a podcast. Music and I'm realising it's such a healthy morning routine. And my dog passed away recently, bless him. My life was so revolved around him. When he needed to go out, I'd be out. And I realised I'd be out five, six times a day with him. Then he passed away and. I'm like, oh, I'm not getting out as much. So now I need to get up, get out. And my life isn't revolving around him now. I've got freedoms to create this new routine. And I think people can listen to this and go, oh, it's all right saying that you've not got kids or you're not got this, you not got that. But it's where can you find the space in your life to create that little 30 minutes ritual that just boosts you in the morning? Yeah, but one of the trainers at work, I heard him talking to one of his clients the day, and he said to his client, you can do 100% of what you can do. And at the end of the day, people have these circumstances in life, which means that they can't get up and get out for a 30 minutes walk or do a movement practise or whatever. But I suppose the only thing to sort of ask yourself is, what decisions are you? People always use the example of Netflix, don't they? Like, how long are you spending on Netflix? Couldn't that time be spent doing something better or doing something more beneficial for you? I actually push back on that a little bit because you know, when you're going home and you've got your last 2 hours at night, I don't think you should be like, right, I'm going to go off and do my walk now, or whatever. You should do whatever you feel right to calm yourself down. You deserve it. It's hard what everyone's going through. You've been at work all day. If you want to spend a couple of hours watching Netflix at night, fair enough. But there's also other times throughout your day that you probably could do something different. And it's not I think that the thing that I get caught up on is that we put it down, these decisions to almost like we put it into almost like it's some sort of ethical thing. Like, I deserve to have a pint at the end of the night, or I deserve to have my chocolate, or I deserve to watch. That's fine, it's nothing. You're not hurting anybody else. You can do what you feel. But what I would ask myself, and what I would ask people to ask themselves is, are you doing the thing that's going to make your life the most optimal? Because it's not about if you should or shouldn't do it. It's more just like, what's the best thing to do? Yeah, it's that simple in it. But we give ourselves excuses or talk ourselves out of things. One thing I noticed during the pandemic is you were really active with posting out in the garden. You were someone online that was like, look, I know everyone's situation is this. This is what I'm doing. That's going to ripple out as the pandemic kind of resolved and you were back being present with people. What was a difference that you noticed after that time period? The vast majority of people that I work with were happy to be back into the gym and were happy to be like I didn't notice any decrease in people's mental health when we came back from the Pandemic. I think that people were happy to be back out and happy to be there's. A few things, like some people were concerned about being in public spaces, they're more wary. And I think I fell into that category as well, to be honest, because unlike a lot of people from our generation, I took the Pandemic quite seriously. I don't know if that was the right decision. Now, I sort of retain agnosticism when it comes to these things, but I was certainly concerned about it with someone that's been so concerned about my own health, even though I still don't know whether I had COVID where I've ever had COVID or not, but I was definitely concerned about it for a long while. Didn't go to places that where there'd be a lot of people around. And I think that that was something that I'd noticed. People, when they came back, they were a little bit more hesitant to be around people. We were told other people are dangerous to us, which I think is like, is really dangerous for people to get that sort of belief into the head, and I definitely got that. But I think that people in general, when they came back from the Pandemic, the clients and the people that I were doing with were just happy to be back in the gym and happy to be having a social circle again and being around people. Because I think being in your house and not being able to interact with people and not being able to have the change is just like if you work from home, just leaving your house to go to the gym and then having a little sauna afterwards, maybe go and get lunch somewhere afterwards is a really important part of life. And to have that sort of taken away for so long, I think was really difficult for people. The benefits of you obviously getting active at home, like I said, would have inspired a lot of people. I guess that was the thing that kept you going through that time as well. Yeah. If I'm honest, I'm in a really lucky position. I was in a really lucky position, COVID for me and the Lockdowns were not difficult whatsoever. It wasn't like me personally, I saw other people going through difficulties, but I was lucky enough that I was living in a house that had a garden that got sunlight. We had a fucking sick summer where it was like, sunnier all the time. So I was like, I can't believe it's happening. Also, I live with my best friend, my partner, Liss. So partner makes not like my business partner, my girlfriend. I'm lucky enough that we and that really proved in our relationship that was something that was like I think a lot of relationships struggled when they were like it's understandably that you'd be put in a situation where you're having to spend all your time with somebody. And there were certainly strains that happened between us, but overall, I think it made us into a stronger couple. So I was really lucky that I had equipment. I e kettlebells that I could work with. I had my partner, List, living with me so I wasn't bored or felt isolated. And I had a garden and I lived in an area or live in an area now that there's walks around, so you could do your morning walk. So I'd be lying if I said that I struggled during the pandemic whatsoever. I found it quite an enjoyable experience, really. I don't want us to go through that again because I think the damage that is done to society, or did to society is massive. And I think about those poor people that were living in an apartment in town somewhere, cooped up and scared about what the future was going to hold like. I think that's a nightmare for society, really. But for me personally, my own subjective experience of it was I enjoyed it. What was some of the things that were working for you? Because I think a lot of people will be interested to hear that you had a positive experience with your partner. What were some of the things that you guys did to enhance that as a positive experience? So I think I'm quite a routine based person. I'm a very routine based person, actually. I thrive when this order is in place. So I would wake up in the morning, I can tell you my date easily. I would wake up in the morning straight away, like you're saying there, would leave the house immediately before List was up, go for a walk. And it take me about an hour to do that walk. Go walk half an hour, get to a spot by the river, sit by the river and purposely not do anything. Just sit there and just completely relax. Just look around. I'd love it, man. I love it. I miss doing that walk whenever I get a chance. I could do that walk now, but I absolutely love it. Go there, come back, have a cold shower. Which is another thing that some people make fun of, cold showers because it can seem a bit silly and it can seem a little bit like getting into a freezing cold shower. But for me, it's the biggest, the best antidepressant. I've never taken antidepressants, but it has such an antidepressant feeling for me that I feel sorry for people that won't do cold showers because it's like a benefit in my life. Do you do them? I've done them in the past. I've gone through periods when I've been so on it and it's like an energy rejuvenation. It's such a shock to the system. You're like, Whoa. And then obviously we know the science. Is it Dr. Huberman, I think, has been a lot of yeah, well, yeah, he's a person I've seen who's presented virus videos, research of other people looking into that. And it's great when you see these things backed by science, because if someone said that 20 years ago, sort of like, yo, you're fucking mad, bro. Like, what are you doing? There's no benefits to that. But now we're at a stage where someone can go, actually, here's the research, and if you're consistent with it, you're bringing yourself natural dopamine and changing your own mind, essentially. But on the other side of that, I remember talking to my friends about this and trying to convince my friends that, and they were just, like, laughing at me, like, I'm not doing that. I enjoy my hot shower. Why are you trying to take this away from me? What fucking psycho you are or whatever. And I said to them, I was like, look, let's put it this way, that if, say, some research came out in five years that said it's going to cause you cancer doing that, you know what I mean? That's one of the worst things you can do for your body, is putting yourself into cold water. Then I'd be devastated by it. I wouldn't be like, oh, good, I get to finish doing my cold showers. Because forget about any research. It's like, how does it make you feel when you do it? And for me, it has such a massive antidepressant effect. When I get out that cold shower, I've changed personality. I'm like, I'm loving life. So I would have a cold shower and then I would do like between ten and 15 minutes of meditation, and we'd then start either working with online clients that we would do it, that we were doing FaceTime sessions or Skype sessions or whatever, which I really found difficult. I really didn't like doing those. But, yeah, we had to sort of pay the bills somehow between doing that. And then we'd start sorting out getting a workout on, start sorting out what we're going to do for a workout today. Is it good enough weather to be in the garden or we're going to have to do one in the living room like a little body weight thing or whatever. Have some lunch after that and then maybe do some more online clients and then sort of start settling into the evening watching Game of Thrones or whatever it was that they were getting into and then having a really regular sort of wake and sleep time, you know? I what mean like going to bed at eleven? Waking up at say, seven, half six, seven. And that for me. I hate to sound so boring, but I would probably be happy doing that for the rest of my life. That's the thing. Again, who are we looking boring to? Because if you're waking up and you're doing your morning ritual and by the time you speak to a client, you're already at a 910 on the scale of life is okay, that is surely the safest and most sensible way to approach life. And I have awareness of all these things, but now I'm really at a point of, right, it's time to implement them now and have no excuses, because we all just find ways to talk ourselves out of the thing we know is going to benefit us and we should technically be doing. Then when we want the rewards. It feels a bit better. Like, I've done all this over here, like you said before, it's okay to do that as long as we're doing this. That's where I'm at now. I'm really aware of the age we're at, even though we're still young. But I'm thinking about the next 20 years. What can I implement? What routines can I make concrete in my life, like you said, for you, you're a routine guy that serves such a great purpose for other things you want to create in your life when it's time to do something new or life comes along and goes, tom, I'm just going to beat you up for, like, three months. Three months of chaos is here, Tom. You're like, yeah, I'm good. These routines are going to stay consistent, if possible, and I think it's a really great way to navigate through life. Not when things are only going good, but when life gets really difficult. When you've got that discipline, it actually serves you as part of your toolkit to move forward. Yeah, I think that that's true for a lot of people. I don't know whether I would personally fall into that category. My insistence on routine or my proclivity for routine has served me well in a lot of ways. So it's put me into a point where I'm in good shape. I perform well physically because my girlfriend calls me a robot. She's like, you just do it. You don't think about, how do I feel? Do I feel motivated today? There's none of that. It's done, it's done, it's done over and over again. With the meditation, it's just like, it's going to happen. There isn't that there. So that's really served me, Eleanor, and it's taking me forward and I don't know if it's even something that I could change. I don't even want to really call it discipline because it doesn't feel like discipline. It's not like I don't have to convince myself, like, no, I'm going to go to gym or I'm going to do this meditation. It just happens. But the dark side of that is that when life does get a little bit more chaotic, I find it really difficult to adapt. So if I get thrown off course, then I'm like, all at sea, I'm all shaky. And I think especially coming into the future, that we're coming into where things are going to change rapidly. My prediction is that things are going to change rapidly. I think that that's a skill that is going to be really valuable, that adaptability, and that's something that I definitely like. If the good side of it is that you get that consistency and that you're in a routine and you can just go through life like getting these results from just doing the thing over and over again, the dark side of that that I've definitely got is like, that inability to change is a real problem for me. What do you do, then, when life does that to you? What are your go to things where there might be circumstances out of your control because it happens to us and we're like, I've got no say in this. I'm just going to have to surrender and see what happens. When things like that happen in life, what are your first go to things where you're like, right, for me to bring myself back to centre and let go of that panicky energy, what are the first things you do? Well, I've got to say, first of all, that I really struggle. So when we came back, we went on a six month trip from November till May. And when we came back, I sort of knew that I was going to be in a little bit of a dark place, I was going to be in a little bit of a struggle. But the gym that I was working at in the past, banner Signs, the management over there decided that they didn't want me to come back after first saying that they did want me to come back, or this is not even come back in terms of as an employee, but as paying them rent. I said to them, Can I come back and start with my old client was yes. There was messing. Yes, yes. Or ignoring calls. And then it turned into two weeks before I came back, actually, no, Tom, we've changed our minds. We're not going to allow you to come back. So I was essentially having to start again, had to move back into a house that my mum and her husband were living in their house. So we were renting that from them before we had to move back in there. So it was like I was thrust back into this situation where I was like, I've got no job, I'm living back with my parents at the age of 37, with my girlfriend. What's happened here? Maybe this trip wasn't such a good idea, as amazing as it was, to be honest, looking at my partner list, and she took to it like a duck to water. She was able to just adapt and she was just able to just sort of flow with the punches, whether it's roll with the punches, whether it's myself, I really struggled for a good month. I was like, properly, it's only looking back now that I realise how down I was when I did come back. But if you're asking what I go to, then it's the same things. It's going back to that. I know that, for example, like today, I woke up and unusually, last night, I went out for a couple of beers with my friend and I don't drink that much, so it really affects me quite badly. It's only two beers, but I woke up feeling hungover. I had slept on the couch and my sleep was fucked and I was just just woke up and I was like, oh, I feel terrible. I even went back to bed, which is something that I don't do. And then when I finally got up, the thing that I really wanted to do, because I had the morning off, was sit and watch TV and just sort of put the PlayStation on and just sort of sit there and zone out. But I know that even though I'm not going to be in trouble for doing that, or there's not like, this moral, there's not that it's God looking at me going like, Tom, you shouldn't watch TV. I know that's not the path for me to feel at my optimal level. So I went for a walk. I decided to go for the 45 minutes walk instead of the hour walk. I went for the walk, I came back, I did my cold shower, did my meditation. Lo and behold, after the end of that cold shower, before I did the meditation, then I'm back and I'm feeling happy again. Now, if I'd have just given in to my desire just to sit and watch TV, it might have, in that moment, made me feel slightly better. It probably wouldn't have probably would have made me feel like just more sluggish. But that was where I was leaning towards and instead it decided, like, I'm just going to do the things that I know the best tools to put me into a better space. So what's the deciding factor? Because I think this is where a lot of us fall victim to go on, bro, just stay on the cops today, yeah? You're good, man, you deserve this. What's the thing that makes you go, no, come on, let's get it done. Yeah. What is the thing that I don't know is the real answer. First of all, I think I'm quite lucky that I've pushed that button so many times of just going, like, you're just going to do it, you're just going to go, you're just going to do the thing that you know to be the best for you. And I think there's a bit of fear as well, in terms of, like, the fear of ruining my whole day. My week is a stronger voice than the voice that's telling me to just chill out and just relax a little bit. It's the same thing of like I remember when I first went freelance, and it was like sometimes I didn't want to do the amount of hours that I was doing, but the fear of the business not working was stronger than the voice that was telling me, just chill out. Just relax a little bit. Just don't do those extra hours. And I don't even know to this day if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It just sort of is what it is. But then also, I see myself in other ways. Like, I'm saying all this as if I'm some disciplined guy that's like, I just do the thing. And truth is that we paid for a course that was going to help us to expand our online business whilst we're away. And I know that if I follow that course to the letter, it's probably going to help me to get to where I want to be in terms of transitioning our business online, which gives us geographical freedom and blah blah. But I don't do that. I just put it off site because I haven't pushed that button of, like, no, you just sit down at the computer and you do your work. That's a button for me that's not been pushed. So I think that the button of just doing the walks, the cold showers, the meditation, the training, the sauna, all those buttons are well and truly been pushed. That line is eroded, that path is worn down that way. But then there's other things in my life where that path hasn't been eroded very much and I'm really resistant to do it. How do you approach the resistance? Because I've reached a point in my life where recently I've really acknowledged how full life is. Like I was saying to you before, it's really easy for us to say life is busy in a complaining way. We were just talking about as we were coming up the stairs, but I've really tried to switch that for, like, life is full, I get to do these things. Like, before, I was, like, podcasting with Tom later. Feeling tired today, didn't sleep great. And he's like, I get to podcast with a guy I've not seen for ages. It's just someone that was a part of my life at some point and it would be great to see him sit down and have this conversation. I try and reframe things quite quickly and I've realised I'm at a point where, like you said, if I sit down and put the Xbox on for an hour, there is some type of thing where I'm like, bro, this ain't getting you to where you want to be. Even though you've had times in your life you've enjoyed these things. And I think there's a shut off mechanism in that where you're just focused on the one thing and nothing else matters. But I'm really aware of time at the moment where I'm like, bro, you might have done that last night. If you do that again tonight. Now you're killing your own dreams. So I'm really aware of being active in whether it's like editing a podcast or I've got this idea for a business, working on something. I also don't want to be that guy where I'm neglecting everything by just doing these things. I think balance is key for well being and I'm really in that space where I'm acknowledging that life is full and I'm enjoying it as well. And I think it's okay to do that as long as we don't lean too far in. Yeah, I think that perspective Shift is a really valuable tool to use, that sort of I get to do this instead of I have to do this. I think it is really important. But the truth is, if I'm talking about myself, is that I don't do it very well, to be honest, using this course as an example, because I'm not very proficient in terms of technology and I'm resistance change. So I end up just going back to what I know, which is going for a walk, getting a cold shower, doing meditation, going to the gym. You know where I am, down by the river. I'm down by the river or I'm in the gym or I'm in the sauna or I'm having some lunch and that's what I'm doing. And I was saying this to a client a while ago, there was a good few years ago I realised that fitness, that training, training, mobility, sauna is a worthwhile use of your time. Like, you're not wasting time when you're doing those things. It's a good idea to do those things and I can do those things well, so I do those things a lot. If I'm doing something where I'm so I think what happens is that sometimes I should be doing something else. Like, I should be maybe more active on social media, I should be learning more about the online aspect of things. I should be putting myself in a position where I'm a little bit more uncomfortable, like working at a computer, which I'm not very comfortable at. But instead what I do is I go like, oh, no, but you know, you're not wasting your time when you go over to the gym or, you know, you're not wasting your time when you go to the sauna and you know the game there, so just go and do that. And I find myself doing that quite a lot. And this is where sometimes when people will look look at me like clients that I've had or people in the gym or whatever, and be like, oh, you're so consistent, you're always trained. I'm like, you don't realise I'm just going to a comfortable place. It's not like some admirable thing that I'm doing where I'm like, it'd be different if I was waking up and going like, I just really don't want to go. But I wake up and I go like, no, I do want to go because that place is safe. That place. I know what the game is. But there is the other thing over here. I don't really want to go there. And there's a switch in there for the people that don't see that as a safe space. It is just that consistency where it becomes hardwired into your brain. And this is why I'm doing the things I'm doing now, where I'm like it becomes part of your routine regardless of what's going on. Like, for example, this podcast I know, unless I was hospitalised or something crazy happened to me, touchwood. That doesn't happen. You're going to get these podcasts on the day I say coming out, and it's a non negotiable, because if I'm not consistent, how can I expect people to consistently listen and have great conversations like this? It's all about showing up and being consistent. If I'm like, Tom, do you want to come and do a podcast? You're like, yeah, when you think and I'm like, I'll get back to you in a couple of days, and it's like, three weeks, or I'm like, oh, sorry, bro, I know we're supposed to be there at five, but this has come up and then it happens again. This guy's not serious about this, but anything you're trying to do in life, I think it is just that repetition. Practise makes perfect. Being consistent. Some days I am like podcast, today I'm feeling knackered. But it's like you get to podcast, you get to speak to someone, you're going to learn, you're going to grow in the process. Even though it's an hour, and I know we spoke about as we were voice, noting back and forth the importance of this. And it's something I've realised as I'm wrapping up episodes with guests. I realise we don't do this anymore. In life, for an hour, hour and ten minutes, you don't sit down with someone, no phones. I've got notes to glance at to guide a conversation. Usually when we're in conversations with people, someone might be on the phone, sorry, bro, what did you say? To sit opposite someone for an hour? It's just not a practise we have in life, in our lives anymore. As someone that does the thing that you do, do you find that people want to naturally come and talk to you? Because I feel like the energy you give off is someone that people are going to want to come and talk to you because it seems like you've got everything together. Yeah, they're wrong about that, but they're definitely wrong about that. If only they do. Yeah. I think one of my strengths is that I enjoy talking to people and I take an interest in people. I'm quite a naturally curious person, so it's like one of the things in my job that I love the most and I also find the most difficult as well, because I'm naturally quite an introverted person. It might not seem. That way. But it's like, if I've been around even this conversation, James, like, I'm comfortable with you. I've known you for many years, the conversation flows easily. But when I leave here, I'll have to take some time to myself. I'm the same. Yeah, you feel the same. I didn't even know that that was introversion until a client of mine told me. And so one of the things that I love is that in a personal training session, you are like just a lot of the time you are having a chat with somebody, you communicate in and sort of seeing someone on a real level. After a while, people can't pretend to be somebody else. If you're with somebody for an hour, maybe they'll be able to do it for a session or two, but after a while, they start to reveal themselves to you and show you who they really are. And that's one of the things that I like I love the most, is that I'm talking to people. When I hear the friend that I was out for dinner with last night works from home and he kept saying, he was like, I'd never get out the house. And you could see that he was, like, looking forward to having dinner with someone just for an interaction. And I'm not short of that at all. All I do all day is chat to people. I train them as well. Don't go put that way down, let's sit down over here. But I do, I talk to people and whatnot I don't think that I find that people naturally just come over to me in the gym and start talking, because usually if I'm in the gym, I'm with somebody. Most people aren't so brazen to just come over and just interrupt training session. But I think that what I do try to do is make it so that that hour that you're with me is not only of benefit to you in terms of I'm going to show you the most effective, safest way of doing an exercise to get to whatever predefined goal that you've got. But also I'm going to make it so it's not an unenjoyable experience on a personal level as well. I see trainers sometimes, and I'm not pointing anybody because it's hard, but I see trainers sometimes in between sets, they'll just sort of stand there, they'll just sort of look around and I look over and I'm like, that feels so uncomfortable to me that you're doing that. Maybe that's just my own insecurity. Like, I can't have comfortable silences with people, but I find that really unusual, the idea of sort of just sitting there with another human being and you're both just sort of like, looking around, you're like, right, well, it's time for your next set. Let's go. And I think that that's been one of the big strengths of mine, is that I'll ask people questions, I want to find out about them. And I want to know what's going on with them. And I'll remember as well, if someone's had something going on in the life next session, when they come in, I'll be like, what happened with that thing? Or if they mentioned, I'll be, oh, yeah, you did say, how did it go? And I'll ask them, because people will tell you a lot if you ask them. And if you listen, people will really bear their souls to you if you do genuinely take an interest. Bose is a bit like the barber when you sign the barber chair. Why have I said that? I've just said so much about my life and I assume people will do that with you a lot, because a lot you're like a solid figure in the life where, A, they respect you, you're in shape, you know your stuff, and then, like you said, people reveal themselves. So if they're going through some stuff and you're consistently with them doing something that's positive, this thing just comes out and then it's kind of like a responsibility within your job, how to guide that as well. It is. And it's something that concerns me sometimes because I take that shit really seriously, to be honest. I'm not a trained therapist. I don't know if what I'm saying is the right thing in this moment. So I've had clients that have been with me that have been going through some shit and I'm like, I don't know if what I'm saying here is right, could I make things worse? But as I said before, you can only do 100% of what you can do. And I just try my best to be authentic, to be sympathetic, to be compassionate, and to truly do try and understand where it is they're coming from, instead of just sort of thinking like they're just moaning. Or I do try to really think, like, what is it that I can? And I think because I've had my own struggles with mental health and I've looked into I've tried to work out what the best way of managing the mind is. Then if I can pass over just a little bit of that to somebody, if I can say, like, five different things that I've found out, and one of them, that person just goes, like, you know what? Yeah, that's right. That's true. That I didn't think of it that way, then that for me is actually of more importance than if they can perfect their squat technique or whatever they want to do. And it goes back to that thing we were saying about the people we found in our lives online, cherry picking stuff. There'd be something from this podcast, someone listens to something and goes, that's the moment I'm going to take with me. I'm going to put you in touch with someone who's a friend of mine, been on the show many times and she's actually starting a programme for coaches, which is based in language, how to elevate your coaching. So you just mentioned and that I think it'd be great for you to connect with her. Definitely delve into that a bit more because this is probably a thing that people don't talk about, they might do in your world, but you can learn the physical side, how to do this exercise to the book, and then all of a sudden you're dealing with humans and the whole array of problems that comes with that. So I'm going to put you in touch with more and I think it'd be great for you to connect. I'd be interested. I think it's something it's like we were talking about before with like you were saying before about us not getting taught any sort of mental management systems when we're in school. What's more important than that? Do you know what I'm saying? We're taught about loads of different things that both of me and you, I'm sure have forgotten now. But we're never taught about being present in the moment or concentrating on your breathing in times of stress or anything that's actually going to help you in your day to day life on an emotional level with people. I don't know the answer to it because I don't know what you can do to get kids to sort of listen to that type of stuff. But I do also think that it's kind of just been completely forgotten about in the education system or never even brought up in the first place. And I think it is the same bringing it down to a sort of small level. You get a lot of personal trainers, especially, that come into this industry very young. Like, I was old to get into personal training. I was like 27 when I started training, 26, 27. A lot of coaches are 1819, 2021. And at that age, it's difficult to have the emotional intelligence, to be able to sort of truly listen to what someone's going through and empathise with them. I don't quite know how you square that circle or what you do about that, but I do think that we are put in a place of responsibility as a coach that really we don't have any real knowledge on how to do it. We're having to do it just by intuition. Yeah, I think you link it with Maureen. I think it'd be great. So after this, I'll pass on the details. There's a question I usually ask on the podcast, but I feel like with the answers that you've given me about what you do when things get a bit difficult, you've most likely probably answered it. So I've got two questions for you. If you could speak to 18 year old Tom from this version today, what would your advice be? It would probably be the same because I've thought about this quite a lot and I go back and forth in my mind about what I would say to that guy because I feel really sorry for that guy. That guy's got some I've not been through any big tragedies in my life, thankfully. I've not been through any really deep shit, but mentally, I've been through my fair share. I struggle quite a lot with my own mental health. I don't want to say I struggle with it a lot. It's something that I have to put a lot of time and effort into, keeping me on a good level. And I look back at that 18 year old kid and I go, man, shit, you're in for it the next 20 years, you're going to have some real struggle, even without the worst things happening. Just do your own making, just do your own fucked up mind. You're going to go through it. I think that what I would probably say to that kid is what I would say to myself now, which is take a deep breath and realise that this is all a temporary existence. It's difficult to tread that line of nihilism of where it's all just a big nothing, no, who gives a fuck, but whatever. I don't mean to come across like that, because I do think that life is beautiful and I do think that it's worth living. And if you could ask me as a little nucleus of a baby first, do you want to be part of this? And I'd be like, yeah, I want to be part of it. I want it with the trials and tribulations, I do want it. I do think life is worth living. But I also think that me, personally, I think that I take things too seriously and I think that 18 year old kid definitely took things too seriously. And I think that you have to be able to just sort of look back and just go, doesn't really matter, man. Try and find that peace. To go back to what I was saying before, I was telling you about that Ramdas quote, he's got another one, which I've thought about getting this tattooed on my body. I think I just love it. And he says, you can do it like it's a great weight on you, or you can do it like it's part of the dance. And that, to me, that speaks to me so much, because I walk through life as if it's this big weight on me all the time. Like, did I text that client? Am I even going to the right gym right now? I haven't done that plan. You can do it like that if you want, or you can do it like this is part of the dance, this is part of what this is just what we're doing in our life. You're going to do your best and sometimes you're going to fail, sometimes you're going to succeed, but be light with it. And I suppose that that's what I try and get across to that kid on the other side of it that kid wouldn't listen to what I was saying. That kid would be like, Shut up with your hippie shit. They wouldn't. I heard Joe Rogan get asked that question recently and he was like they said something like, what would you tell your 20 year old self? And he went, I won't tell it shit I say, fucking figure out. And then he said he could probably listen to me anyway. And I thought I said it for yeah, you've got it. Bang on. I always think, like, if I rocked up, dressed how I'm dressed now, and 18 year old me saw me and I'm trying to give you advice, I think you'd be like, yeah, who are you, bro? What's that hat you wearing? I could just imagine it probably at that age we'd be like, Cheque this dick out. But the other question is it's a great question. I love projecting into those thoughts because obviously it's not a possible thing we can do. Maybe in the future we might be able to do it. Who knows? No, but I love shit like that. My mom hates hypothetical questions. She hates that type of question because she'd just be like, well, you can't. But I love it because I think you get to explore. It's an unlimited landscape of where you can explore when you go into these hypothetical questions. And some people can't do it. I had a really big life lesson when I was about 27. I was at a party with an ex partner and her friends and this guy owned, like, I think, a hotel or comet say he was our age now, 37, and he said, oh, I just got back from Thailand. So I was like, oh, do you enjoy it? I've been to Thailand. I was trying to create conversation. He went, yeah, I loved it. So I said, Would you rather enjoy Thailand at the age you're at now or go back and do Thailand as the 18 year old year? And his answer was, I can't. I've got responsibilities. I own a hotel. I do this. I went, no, I understand that. Just hypothetically, would you rather do it as the 18 year old you or you now? Which do you think you would get more out? The travelling experience? Blow out of a stone? I don't think you understand. I've got responsibilities here. And I was so mind blown by it that some people cannot project themselves into that place. And again, Maureen, who I just mentioned, I remember saying this to her and she said, you're a creative. You can easily throw your mind into creating a wonder of experiences. Some people are so rooted in logic that they cannot fathom what you're trying to present to them because they can't detach from the logic. And it was such those moments where you go, wow, some people really think like that. Because he made me feel like I was dumb in that moment. And I remember just giving up going, this guy's a spud. How can you not understand? But it made me realise how different we all are and how different our perspectives are and maps of the world are. The last question I want to ask you. What would you ask 47 year old Tom? Is it going to be okay? What would I ask 47 year old Tom? Yeah. I really don't know. I said that answer is it all going to be okay? In a bit of jest, but I truly probably would want to know that. And it's like, what does okay mean? That would be my question. What would okay look like to you? Yeah. Even that, I don't know. I suppose when I spoke to you before about that feeling that we're all looking for with whatever endeavour we go down of peace, are those moments of peace more frequent? Do they come to you more easily? That's a great question. Can you realise on a more frequent basis that it's never going to all be okay? It's never going to all be sorted? You're always going to have a to do list that's a mile long, that ambitions that aren't within your grasp, that you're always going to have these feelings of, like, I might be of a fucking loser here, or whatever, and on the other side as well of that, I'm sick. You're going to have all that. And in the middle of that, can you retain a certain amount of peace and how much can you do that and how often do you get dragged away from that? And I suppose that's what I'd ask him. And what I'd hope is that if I can make the same leaps, not in terms of financial success, but in terms of my mentality from the ages of 27 to the ages of 37, and certainly from the ages of 17 up to 37, if I can make another leap from 37 to 47, I'll be happy. Because I do feel like if I can be so arrogant, say that I've learned a lot of lessons and I've taken them on board. I feel like I have. I feel like I'm a lot happier person than I was when I was 27. And if I can continue to do that, then, yeah, I'm okay with that. Yeah. Incredible. I want to say a big thank you for this today. Thank you for inviting me, man. I've got open invitations to people that I know. There's many avenues of conversations we can go down, so it's not just a, hey, show up for an hour and tell me about your whole life. It's three months, six months, whenever you're ready, you like, I feel like I want to come and share. Yeah, there's an invitation to come and do that. I really want it to be that community. I appreciate that, man. Just drop me a message, like, Bro, have you got a slot for me to come and chat again. Say no more. Yeah, absolutely. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like I said to you before when we were talking about this, I think that these conversations don't happen enough, like you said before, because of what we have, because of the lives that we live these days and the distractions that we have. And it's a shame because I wanted to ask you more and I felt like I didn't want to kind of you don't want to take over and start being like, no, and this and that. But I've got so much more to say. Let's do it, bro. Let's make sure it happens. Honestly, there's an invite. It's there whenever you want it, just message me and we'll leave a bit of a gap for life to happen and grow. And then I really want to show people's journeys and have just like you see on the podcast that we probably both watched Joe Rogan over the years. You have your guests, you're like, oh, he's back on. Love that. And you'll follow someone's journey for 710 years without you even realising. And that's really what I want to create. So, bro, whenever you want to do it, just drop me a message. Like I said to you over the Voice note, I appreciate you doing this, setting this type of stuff up, because I think that this is one of the few avenues of if we can call this social media. I don't know if you would class it as social media, but I think this is one of the few avenues of social media or media that is beneficial. Just in the process of it, just in the very process of doing it, I think it makes a difference. And it does need people, as I said in the voice note to you, it needs people to do the thing of setting it up and organising it. It's not good enough to just be like, yeah, we should do that at some point. So I appreciate you doing it and congratulations on it, man. It's great little set up you got. Yeah, thank you. A bit like you. It's the thing I cannot deviate from. I actually love doing it. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of graph. You seem like you enjoy doing it. Yeah, I'm really enjoying it, man. Editing has been my thing. I've done that since being 15 via music. So audio is second nature. Video is a new thing, so I've been editing that, but it's a lot of work. But when I sit down and do this and there's things I'll take now as this version, then there's another version that gets to sit and edit and I'll take bits from our conversation then. And then when it goes live, I might listen to it again and I take something from it then. So it's like, in stages for me and it's really rewarding. I want to say a big thank you, bro, for coming to do this, where can people find you? So my Instagram account is Tomnicopt as my personal one, but the main one that I have to give all credit to Lis because she puts in a lot of time and effort into it. And it's a lot better, more interesting page than DOMINICO PT is socco Movement. S-O-C-O-M-B-M-T. That's where you'll find our content. Content that she spends a lot of time putting together. I just show up and do a workout. She's getting all the cameras sorted out and deciding what's going on with it. But that's probably the best place of finding us. And yeah, and that's all incredible. I'll put everything down in descriptions as well, so people can just click on them. And a big thank you to you guys, the listeners, for coming back every week, checking in. Remember life is sound is now weekly. We've got the weekly podcast, so make sure you cheque in back. Not every other week, every week. Thanks again to Tom for coming day. I really appreciate it, bro, sharing your story, your mindset. And I hope you guys, the listeners can take something from Tom's story and apply it to your own life. And it's exactly what Tom said. When life gets difficult, finding the things that makes it that little bit easier. That's why we call it Life is Sound. So remember, no matter what you're going through, life is good, life is sound. Catch you on the next one. Stay blessed.