Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to the, give yourself the chat podcast. I'm your host, Peter Lewis. And this is the show dedicated to unlocking human potential and living a life
Speaker 1 00:00:08 Performance. So hello
Speaker 0 00:00:16 Are welcome to give yourself the chat podcast. I've got another guest with me. I have a gentleman called Lee chambers today. Lee, how are you? Good to see you. I'm really well. Thank you, Peter. And thank you for having me on today. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. We were just talking off air weren't we at, uh, uh, how much we could talk about and how much of a shared interest we have in multiple different areas. And, um, so we're gonna cut to the chase really. Um, you were a young man you're 35 years old and, and I said to you, you've probably packed more into that time then. I mean, I was just exhausted listening to all the things that you, you sort of rattled off. Um, but let, let's start with really your, your, your profession. You describe yourself, um, as a, as a functional life coach, but I know perhaps more recently you've taken issue even with your own title there, and I'd be interested to explore.
Speaker 0 00:01:08 Let's just, just jump straight in what talk, talk to me about functional life coaching and what that might be and your thoughts around that. Yeah, so the, the initial impetus for the principle of functional life coach is that I felt that the term life coach it's fallen into a generic, a base of people offering advice from a number of different angles on the many facets of life. And actually it's become so fragmented and over overused that if you now took a sample of 50 people and ask them what a life coach was and what they did, you'll probably get 47 different answers. So the impetus behind functional life coach is that I actually decided to take different elements and put them together in a, in a, in a function, in a model that could be utilized and how that came about from really shared in my own clients and really looking at what worked with a diverse range of people.
Speaker 0 00:02:09 I really boiled it down to people really need that initial understanding and ability to dig into themselves a bit and realize why they've got the goals that they've got. So that initial helping them with elements of purpose, mission, and direction. There's people that, you know, the anchor in pint. And then what I really put in there is I've got physiological, psychological background. So firstly, we look physiologically, we look at nutrition, sleep and movement. I utilize my qualifications there to give guidance on small changes that people can make not compound. Because again, are you going to set off on this journey towards reaching your potential, moving towards your authentic self? It really helps if you start to embed health practices, which give you more energy to move mine into your hub, the quicker you can propel yourself. And the more you become compelled to move towards that vision, that you're starting to it and call to that.
Speaker 0 00:03:09 Then with that additional energy, it's actually easier to start to tackle your limiting beliefs, the habits that hold you back, and you become more receptive to deciding, to look a bit more around the basics of psychology and understanding behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and how you interact with the world. And then with all that, as a fundamental best, we then start the coaching process of pawn into wild, the goals that you selected and then empowering and encouraging you through that process. And I feel that quite often caught Jimmy's barrier, Danny, and it does have elements that work, but it's when you have to tailor it very, very individually into each person, it's hard to unplug the amplitude of what you can achieve. And I wanted to impact more people through my work. So I've now expanded that into a workplace wellbeing practice. That's where I feel that the functional element has really helped because it's more programmatic, more functional and more brought into a methodology where still be able to be sparked to each individual. And yet there's a framework to work from
Speaker 2 00:04:26 That. That's a really interesting point that you've come to in your, in your sort of coaching practice. Excuse me, I've, I've come to a similar, Oh gosh. It's this is not emotion. If anyone's listening to this is cool. It's something in my throat. We'll edit that one out. Um, it is, it's interesting. You say you've come out of that, that sort of programmatic level. I mean, I've, I've been involved in coaching now for 12 years or so, and that organic nature of coaching can often lead into actually you get some quick wins, but then actually it's the deeper underlying causes of human behavior and what's either supporting or not. So focusing on health and the optimum optimization of health and the four pillars of health, and that is absolutely fundamental. So it's interesting. I've moved more to a programmatic curriculum sort of based approach, um, with my clients as well.
Speaker 2 00:05:17 And actually it's going down really well. So it's interesting that we as coaches come to that and the absolutely right, that there's so many of us out there and, you know, in an unregulated industry, it's sometimes really hard for a client to know actually am I with the right person, but you're certainly really qualified. I know you're environmental psychologist, you've you, you're a lifelong learner and sort of, um, a student of modern philosophy and ancient intelligence. I love that term. I think we share a love of stoicism and all those other things that influence our lives. But I just want to give the listener a little bit of an insight into, into what you've packed into your life. You've also run and recently sold an eCommerce business and, and congratulations to that. But the challenges you faced in your life as well, 2014, I think I'm right in saying you suffered a chronic illness and, and lost the ability to walk, um, whilst having a very young family and I think a child on the way was that right?
Speaker 0 00:06:15 That was right. Yeah. My wife was six months pregnant.
Speaker 2 00:06:18 Wow. And then having to learn how to walk again and you've suffered with mental health challenges. Um, you've had doubters at every level of saying you're too young to, to, to do all this kind of thing. So tell me about as, as, as much as you're willing to this, this is losing the ability to walk and the chronic illness and then recovering from that mean becoming the man you are, would you mind just exploring with us that side of your, your past that's?
Speaker 0 00:06:45 Yes, certainly. Um, so in so many ways, I, I hit, if I was in a fall teen and I was 29, uh, my son was 18 months old at the time on the previous CA me and my wife had got married. We'd bought our first house together. We've gone holiday in Florida and cruise around the Caribbean and to all intents and purpose to society and to our friends, we'd seem to settle into, you know, a nice family rhythm. And every looked very flow room fluffy from the outside. Um, and I just turned 29 and I was thinking with my second child, my daughter on the way, right, what can I do before I become even more sensible with, uh, with two children on my edge beginning, we have a free, um, and I went and partied with my friends and had a really, you know, a really fulfilling birthday.
Speaker 0 00:07:37 Uh, but then only a few days later, my immune system started to attack my giants. Um, firstly it was my wrist. So in so many ways I was just like, I fought abundant or afar. Maybe I just overused the computer this week. Uh, and it was on a Friday when it started to swell up. So I just thought, I'll go see the doctors on Monday and just see if it's anything serious. Unfortunately then on Sunday I came back from a meal with my friends and my knee starts to swell up. By the time I got back onto my driveway, couldn't actually move my leg properly. So I hobbled into the house and had a bit of a moment thinking I can't move my leg like this isn't great. Then I was like, you know what? I'm going to go to the doctors on one day and hopefully they should it out as a God.
Speaker 0 00:08:23 So the doctors and they're giving me some cardio sides and say, you know, the swelling is quite bad. Hopefully they should take it down and give it a few days. If it doesn't come back and we'll look, we'll investigate further. Uh, so start taking these and you know, you're, you're a young, like you kind of fit, you were a little bit indestructable and you think it would be right. It'll be all right. I'm only on the Tuesday. All of a sudden my shoulder started to swell up and move up towards my ear. So at that point I was pretty painful and I was like, yeah, this isn't great, but I've got this meditation. I'm going to give it end of a day. So I wake up on Wednesday morning and my other knee is starting to swell up. And at this point I was, uh, on the Tuesday with one arm of action.
Speaker 0 00:09:08 And when they got objection, I'm kind of like scaling the stairs, like in an interest in where let's just say that when you can't move your leg and you can't wait, but run one arm. So I was, uh, yeah, it, it, it was serious, but I probably wasn't taking it serious as I showed up. But I walk up on that Wednesday. My Albany started to go and, um, somehow I managed to get myself down the stairs. My mother in law, Cameron took one, look at me hospital now straight away, straight to a and E looked up by consultant consultant says, just ask him fruits of the wall. It was like, okay, it's on my OBS and off I went. Um, so that was really, it was a new challenge. I was in shock at that point. Like I've gone from fully independent, fully mobile playing team sports, working a job, running a business line in hospital bed with two legs out of auction or one arm of action.
Speaker 0 00:10:07 Not able to show myself to feed myself properly, to go to the toilet. I couldn't, I couldn't do anything. I was literally trapped. Um, and that initial shock, it just obviously in, in that position, you're struggling to process anything. We have a wife, six months pregnant. She's about to go on some turn. So she's coming off the work to help me shower to help me, help me eat. It's like English. It was, it was, I didn't, I didn't really know how to process that initially. But what I was in was a lot of pan as my body was attacking itself viciously and I was on morphine and Tramadol just to take the edge off that. And that kind of put me onto a play and elsewhere initially, where I wasn't even present really. I don't think that that breaks down. Yeah. Um, but after a few days, the doctor started to stabilize me the drain, the fluid off my knees in front of my own eyes, which wasn't pleasant like quarter of a pint of fluid of monies.
Speaker 0 00:11:09 But what actually happened was that like shock, shock a process and then native emotions can, and I just knew like about challenges previously, romantic health and around redundancy. And I knew from those experiences, these negative emotions, I need to let them calm. Don't suppress them, don't blow them up, let them calm what Quip them like them past. So that initial shock wore off. And then I was, I was in despair and in a lot of ways, frustration. So I'm 29. I'm young I've looked after myself. I was healthy. And so a week ago it doesn't seem very fair. So I had those days and I was pretty grumpy about it. And then it of passed. And then I moved into grief. So starting to anchor into my identity. So I'm a young mum, I'm a fanatic physical mobility players have a big role in what I do.
Speaker 0 00:12:05 My son was coming at 18 months old. He wasn't able to articulate or understand why daddy couldn't get up out of bed and play. And that led me to feel an element of grief because I just didn't know what the future was going to hold. And then all of a sudden that starts to pass and I'm in the second week and you get so much time to reflect when you can't move. And I was there on a ward with free elderly gentleman and speaking to them, they were saying, you know what, you're so young, you know, you'll be all right, just keep getting through it. And I'm speaking to them. And they were saying, you know what, we're coming towards the end of our lives. And you know, I don't have any of the regrets that we've had and kind of, I felt slightly reassured by that, but I was still struggling.
Speaker 0 00:12:52 It's still that not really getting any clarity from the doctors about what my future hard, and then I'll let either on an afternoon, it was a Wednesday, the hospital where I was at, I'd been moved up to another ward higher up in the hospital, which had a really nice view of the malls across from the hospital, like the window. And I saw leather, you know, I was able to set up a little bit now, which was helpful. And I just sat there and looked across those views and just fart. It's a massive world out there. You can't just lie here. You're going to have to have a turning point where a year you really sadly up. And really, I think that was, that was me giving myself the word, like saying, giving yourself the chat. Yeah. Giving myself that word. That shot that question. What are you going to do?
Speaker 0 00:13:44 And I lay about dome and hard enough at that point. And then walk off about an hour afterwards. And I was just leather, kind of coming round. Something just popped into my head after I'd questioned myself before going to sleep or then walk up. And this just cam, and it was like not once in 29 years on this planet, have you been grateful for walking? And now you've lost it temporarily possibly, but 29 years, not grateful once there's people on this planet who were born unable to walk and never experienced. And you're going to lie here, bill, sorry about losing that. But you've had it and you've never been grateful. And that just expanded. Then I'm like, wait a minute. I'm here in hospital. And I can't do these things myself, but there's people come in, give me time and energy out of their lives to come and help me do all these things.
Speaker 0 00:14:45 I've been grateful enough to them over these years. Yeah. Not grateful it off. And then it just went even, cause it literally just drilled down into my heart at this point. And I was like, I was like literally in tears. And I was like, wow, this is, yeah, I've grown up in the UK. I have heart freedom. I've never been homeless. I've never been hungry. I've had opportunities around every corner, free healthcare, free education. Freedom up for business works in a number of different industries. Never been subject to war to farm in to natural disaster. Where a minute, why am I sat here? Being ungrateful, look at the life. You've had the opportunities. You should be grateful for every minute. You're alive. Live in this life full of abundance. Why are you going to look at this one thing that's happened here and feel, sorry, not this has happened.
Speaker 0 00:15:43 It's how you react to it now. And at that point I made that decision. It's just like a switch and I cut off any other option. I was going to get back on my feet and I was going to do everything proactively with my recovery to get back walking again and are anchored into numerous different things. I was like, quite simply, I identify as someone who walks, it's going to be incredibly painful. This journey, I'm going to met progress. I'm going to fall back, but I'm going to attack this disease as much as it's attacking me. I got discharged from hospital after a moment into walking rehab. And then my daughter was born and I was like, by the time she's walking, I'm going to be walking with her. She's been born here with no beliefs, stuck to her. None in society's grime that the fruit that's been thrown at you every day.
Speaker 0 00:16:36 She got none of that. She's got some basic system to keep her alive. I'm when to get in that shower, wash all these limits, these boundaries, these expectations off me. I'm going to go on the journey with her. Well, that time she's walking, I'm going to walk. We walk in with her and were running around the God who my children. And again, a really anchored into that. It's not going to be how I feel. I feel I will not fulfill the expectations I have of myself to recover because I felt awful on so many mornings in Penn state, but how to do my exercises, my stretches and drug myself to physio. And I did it because I ran, convinced the identity and decided who I want to become is what I will do, what I will do or make me feel good because I am doing what I wants to become rather than the other way around and doing what I feel. I feel awful. I'm not going to do it. No, when I don't do it, my subconscious is like, you're going to feel bad now because you've lied. You said you were going to recover and you're not doing it. Congruence is, Oh, that's, that's such a powerful story, Lee, isn't it. And that's that idea of just
Speaker 2 00:17:50 Taking yourself out of your own inner space to externally reference, see the gratitude that you are and the abundance that you're living within. But here's the thing. And I've, I've wrestled with this and I've blogged about it myself is that that condition is accessible to each one of us right now, no matter what your circumstance, but it takes a crucible moment like that in hospital, staring out in the mall was for you to wake up to the fact that you can access that and why. And as a psychologist, I mean, you'll be fascinated with why is that? Because it's, it's accessible now in whatever state bear uptime or downtime, you can access that gratitude. And yet we don't until where it's almost we're left with nothing else.
Speaker 0 00:18:32 Yeah. And it, in so many ways, it's part of our human condition. So as humans, we absolutely love things that are novel, novel, new experiences. So we get the new car and you're like, Oh, look at all these buttons comfortable seat and then give it a few days. And it's just your car and everything else then becomes novel. And because we really appreciate novelty, the things that we can do that happen automatically, that we don't think about. We struggle to reference and we luck the vision cause we don't focus on it. So because you don't have to think to walk because you don't have to think to breathe because you don't think you have to sleep. Those three things are things that people take massively for granted those breath work, optimizing your sleep and appreciating walking. Well, people don't really UNHCR into that because you do it already.
Speaker 0 00:19:36 And we as human beings. So often we see the world for our lenses. It's very difficult for us to step back into third person and realize actually we should be spending time reflecting and following ourselves round as if we were an answer in a player when we were sat in the audience, watching how you interact with the world, because having that second set of eyes behind you really helps you to appreciate how you move in the world by coming out there. But you actually start to see is that what's happening to you right now is a shared human experience. The feelings, the challenges, difficulties, the problems that you have today being experienced by millions of other people, millions of other humans right now at this moment and yet how society is and how we are wired. And the vision that we see is so narrow.
Speaker 0 00:20:39 It requires a level of self awareness to step out. So think laterally because we've taught through education through society and through a lot of our evolutionary elements to look vertically all the time, we're always looking to next solution, moving forward, moving up, making progress and building gratitude. It requires practice. It's like a muscle. The more you practice gratitude, the more you will see, we are very good at focusing on things we practice focusing on. So it's like going to a gym for your gratitude. You, by practicing gratitude, you build the muscle, which your not only to see more, but it's have more capacity to be grateful, to have more strength, to be grateful through challenging times when you're buffeted by the winds and by practicing gratitude in the summer, it will still be grateful in the winter when it's pouring down, when it's freezing cold.
Speaker 0 00:21:49 And in so many ways, a lot of our psychological processes that we value our muscle best stress them by practicing them. And then when you rest and recover, they grow and your capacity, your ability, you strengthen your provision to use them increases. And what happens is people struggle to navigate those moments because we have a negative bias as human beings, negativity sticks to our brands like Velcro, positivity, slips off like Teflon. And it actually requires you to practice almost training your brands, have some little hooks for those positive moments, great money and big time, because otherwise it just slips straight off. And those elements of practice are what help people to navigate and find that gratitude in those times. And for so many of us, we just kind of exist and live don't have acuity to our senses. We don't practice psychological elements that help us become more optimistic to become more hopeful.
Speaker 0 00:22:56 You just chess, happiness, and try to almost achieve it. Like it's something that you could tangibly grasp. Like it's a distant Island that will roll into odds at Paris. And what happens is because we're so focused on chasing that happiness, we are rowing like a mud man. We don't see the lovely views of the oceans that are left on the right. And what happens is the Island always travels further aware. It's like the plants, the shifting and the Island is always going a little bit out of reach. That's really happiness is not that distant Island while like a guiding star in the sky on one shirt aligns your path from what's authentically. You, you gradually roll towards that S you know, that star in the sky, but you never expect to get there. So you actually stop rolling for a minute, knowing that you're rowing in the right direction, but you look out or you see the star shining on the water. You have those moments of joy, and you just realize that it becomes a compass for your own decisions for your own life that you want to live. And it becomes a compass for you find new things, which bring you joy in the moment, enjoying the longterm. And once you identify that you can then do more of it and it amplifies cause then that ignites an insight giant others, and you begin to help us move to our true potential and then help others to do the same thing. And the world becomes a happier place.
Speaker 2 00:24:31 Mike drop there, Lee, I think you've just kind of articulated the secrets of a film and enjoy in this life there's, but we won't let ourselves off the hook that easily. That's, let's unpack a bit of that. That's a, that was a really elegant, um, sort of exposition and an articulation of, of several things there that the, the roots of which is that self awareness. Um, I think, and there are so many people that experience life and accept that that experience is all they can because it's, it's fixed in some way or it's degree. It's differed by, by fate. But I think it's only when you start to develop that self awareness and the compounding effect almost of that and that, that sort of gym analogy around building the muscle. Um, it is, so it is so true, but unless you're willing to expose yourself to the idea of practicing and incrementally build and that's, uh, to raise that awareness, you you'll never even get off the starting block.
Speaker 2 00:25:33 So it's interesting. I want to take you back to that moment when you were staring out at the malls and you've had the, the, the elderly gentleman in the ward saying, you've got so much of your life and you can get through this at that. It's easy to describe being grateful. It's easy to describe, I'll do X, Y and Zed, but B you've reached a point where you it's almost like you had no other option. And was there anything in your previous life, cause you mentioned, mentioned about the sort of mental health challenge that you had. Is there anything that kind of set you up for that moment, do you think? Or was it just a, you know, the, the sort of the epiphany that you had, is there anything that in your past that really helped you make the most of that opportunity staring out at the mall? Is that time to make the change?
Speaker 0 00:26:20 Yeah, so I think in so many ways, again, people believe that they just have that moment and that self enlightenment hit them like a lightning bolt, but rarely, so often, even in that massive adversity, it's how you've practiced it in the past. Even when you don't think you have built something, that's a Logitech can access it at a time in crisis when suddenly we become more innovative, creative and dynamic. Uh, so Y when I reflect on it now, I realized that some of my past challenges really prepared me to hit that moment and be able to move with it and have the capacity to do so. So I had a relatively stable upbringing in the North of England. And in so many ways I had that childhood working class, parents worked really hard, but instilled me with a work ethic, but I was the first one in my pharmacy also university, but I didn't really have a reference point.
Speaker 0 00:27:20 We're very proud that I then set the example for other people that they could set the academic path, because I was always curious, disruptive child who was looking to do things differently and to experiment and willing to put himself out there and wonder what happened. Um, so I went to the university and really enjoyed the autonomy and the freedom initially. Um, but like so often happens that was, that kind of had done it copied her. So, yes. Um, and what I kind of did is initially after all the fun of the clubs and the societies actually started to struggle. So I hit a point where I wasn't putting enough effort in academically, and that meant not starting to struggle cause I wasn't doing anything outside of my lectures relating to my costs. I was studying in social business psychology. So you have to cover quite a lot of ground because of the space and of the units.
Speaker 0 00:28:16 So I was doing geopolitics communication, language, business, and different core elements of that and psychology, organizational and social as well. So it's quite a breadth of reading that you really have to do. And I had kind of costed for a lot of, you know, my academic background and wasn't really pulling in off HAFA in, but also what was happening is I was struggling because I was ready to make adult transition. I was, didn't have a reference point. So my own father spent a lot of time busy working and then doing his own thing. And we always had a relationship and it was never fractures, but it was never on any level, deeper than the shower walls of talking. So I've not really had that chance to access that. I locked hands as cited. And as a young black male, your you can, you know, muddle your icon, the evil work in spot, fell on music, look out to black scientists like businessman back 15 years ago.
Speaker 0 00:29:17 I wasn't really anyone in the mainstream for me to look up model and say, that's like me, it may be, I can use this person as a reference point to build my own identity, obviously. But then I wasn't as understanding that actually that comes from within you, you are an authentic expression, but I did try and access that and find that I didn't have the emotional intelligence to self-awareness all the tools to get in there and dig. And what really happened then was I wasn't in that place where I am no, where I don't understand that to find your authentic expression, you have to take a chisel and go out and do things, do lots of different things to gradually find what resonates with you. So I sat there thinking and reading, try into pink, my, where to clarity and read my way to action.
Speaker 0 00:30:08 I'm virtually in that position. Didn't do anything, but fill me with knowledge that I couldn't utilize and left me really wondering why's why haven't you had any Clara? And that started to frustrate me. And in some ways it started to lead to me, not self care in the way that I should have, because again, I'd moved out and I kind of got the hunger of that, but then fallen out of the habit. And I was present since 300 of students at university in the middle of a presentation. I froze chalked and another students that said and finished off my piece, but that really hit my confidence. I was done on a slight spiral downwards, where instead of approaching these issues and starting to look back on them and dissect them and wonder why, what happened? I started to abide or start to isolate myself. And that eventually led to me, isolating myself two weeks in my university dorm and then being taken home by my parents.
Speaker 0 00:31:09 So being taken home was, it was quite embarrassing at the time. And yeah, it gives me the space, which was really important because I needed that space to process what had happened. And by doing that, then realize that what I've done is I've literally put my head in the sun after not being able to find an answer. And I realized that in life, you're going to come across challenges. But if you look vertically and everything seems blocked off, you've got to actually look laterally and see what you can access. Because so often we have a very two dimensional view of the world. We only really see what's in front of us. And yet we actually need a far, far, far off five dimensional view of the world because there's a lot of different planes out there to explore. And as soon as you actually open your eyes up and realize, well, there's pathways, either side there's puff where there's a pathway, you can dig, you can retreat, you could move side to side, you can fly up in the air and you can jump in the helicopter.
Speaker 0 00:32:17 And I started to realize that actually the biggest thing I could say it from that is it's my responsibility to build my own self awareness and find out how to express myself authentically. If I spend my whole life avoiding that, I'll never be who I am if I start to approach it. And yeah, it's going to be a little bit scary. Yeah. There's going to be elements of fear there, but actually I need to step into that because that's where I am my graph, my potential, but more importantly, me, you know, the real leaf is there where seem to be discovered. And if I don't step into that, then how am I ever going to express myself to the world? I'm just going to be walking around as some constructs who doesn't really, it doesn't really have any identity that initial understanding of you've gone to have to approach not a vide that helped me after those negative emotions to start to approach what can I do?
Speaker 0 00:33:12 What's my potential, where can I go? And the second one was I went through that and started to re refine and define who I was by going out there and doing things. I went back to university because I felt a hut to golfer that process, get bucked graduate, firstly, to prove that I could continue to progress. Secondly, it's that buck outside that comfort zone and go again, but do it more mindfully stat by stat, instead of running all the way over, straight into panic and then going bonkers and retreat again. So while learn is rarely courage and bravery is not running into that blessing building. It's just taking those tiny steps outside of your comfort zone. The more you do it, the more you become cultured, the more you become cultivated. And the more you start to grow into that and your boundary, your comfort zone starts to expand. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:34:12 And therefore your, I guess your degree of sense of control as well, an agency starts to expand with that.
Speaker 0 00:34:19 Yeah. And with the agency suddenly when you link that into the well, to get back on my feet and the why to play with my children agency plus well, plus Y is in incredible most events to flip the focus and remove the software in golf rec. Um, and also I graduated into the financial world in 2007, worked really hard for six months and then was made redundant or lost the funding for my training. And again, that initial feeling of that was Whoa, this was what I wanted to do. This has been away.
Speaker 2 00:34:57 Timing stops nor that norm
Speaker 0 00:35:01 Jobs for me to go into. So to have to pivot on my career after six months and what that actually did was it. Then we realize you take ownership of your career and of your training. You take ownership, you have the autonomy of control, no one can SAC aware your business. You can, and you can fail and you can know why you fail to learn from it, but it's removing those external wins. Those external wins will hit you, but you can move within them. If you've got the autonomy of control. And if you pair for your own qualifications, you'll probably do them. You've got skin in the game. And again, you get to pick what you do and therefore you have elements of control and elements of investment, which really help to, you know, to battle through when qualifications get a little bit difficult.
Speaker 2 00:35:52 Hmm. Hmm. That's interesting. I love the, uh, what all of that she would say you, I've made a note here, as you were talking, you said you could either, you think yourself to clarity or read yourself to action, but actually it's really about taking that step to decide to do something. And, and I think that, again, it speaks to that self awareness piece. It's the multiple planes of options that we have. It's a blessing and a curse because the moment you become more self aware, you realize, well, actually, I've got all these options. Why am I procrastinating? Why am I procrastinating it? I just need to get onto, but actually linking it to a stronger desire and something more external again, we'll come back to that. I mean, this, this whole chat that we've had is all about how you give yourself the chatter around that. But it, I think it speaks to so much more, I want to pick up on if I may, your, some of your interests and particularly around that philosophy and, and this term ancient intelligence, uh, and I love that term, but I'd like to get your view on what that means for you. And perhaps we could then segue on to some of the more influential sort of ancient philosophers or readings or schools that have influenced your thinking on the world. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:37:08 So, so in so many ways, Ashton intelligence for me is the fact that when we look up what we consider today to be the modern self-improvement personally <inaudible>, and, and a lot of where scientific movements, so much of it as already been discussed. So two and a half thousand years ago. And in fact, these people have high, some levels of self awareness because the ad so much less stimuli, so much less provides so much less information posh that they actually have the capacity and the space to look at these things in a world that was different, but actually come to incredibly clear conclusions on the human condition, how we react to the world and our environments, how we interact with each other. And it's funny because the more that we start to understand from a molecular biological level, Bali, that so many of the teachings of the poets, and I think the biggest thing for me, and I'm a massive proponent of the fact that physiologically and psychologically, we are massively interconnected tech, the Ash and Greeks, the Ash gymnasium on one side, the wrestles training on the other side, the philosophers taught in the sand building, physical and mental were treated as the Sam in the same building.
Speaker 0 00:38:48 You work on your body, you work on your mind, chisel your body to show the gods, your potential. And you work your mind to explore the potential that the gods have given you to look at the world from a number of different angles and that in so many ways, a modern gem, it should have a philosophy school attached to it. Why not? I'm sure they had it right, because it's so interconnected. You could go and get it cognitive flexibility, cognitive capacity flowing by doing some exercise that blood pumping to your brand. And then you could go and sit there and absorb information, but not only that you would have the cognitive capacity. So utilize that to chef it so fragmented. And so in some ways, cultivates it into the world and see out there rather than just absorbing some facts to then spit back out like so much of the self redevelopment well today.
Speaker 2 00:39:52 Interesting. Isn't it? How they held, um, the physical realm. And then they're sort of the mental in the same degree of reverence and importance and the sort of symbiotic relationship between those two and yet fast forward two and a half thousand years. And Oh, funny, old things. Sport is now waking up to psychology and philosophy and how that affects performance. And it's like, dude, we knew that two and a half thousand years ago. Duh. Um, but now it's, yeah, it's cutting edge. We're not, it's not cutting edge. It's interesting about your, your description of, of how they had less distraction and therefore more time to reflect. And I guess if we bring that to, to us and, and, and the listeners is about, well, how can we do more of that? It back to, you know, we can always access gratitude. We don't have to wait for a chronic illness, right? Let's, let's kind of finish our time up by some thoughts around what are some practical things that the listeners can start to do in practice, not only to give themselves a chat, but just access that, that state of being where we do start to develop our self awareness and realize the degree of agency and control that all of us have.
Speaker 0 00:41:03 Yeah. And I think that for, for me personally, it's so often starts with, we have a lot of control in our lives of our am and PM bookends. Most people in the world, you have a socially defined wake up time, wherever it be for children for work, or for family engagements are something that gets you up in the mine in a time that's defined socially and a time when you finish your daily activities. So we actually have period in the mining period in the evening where we have the most autonomy and control. And what's really important is to try and harness those, especially the mining, because for most people in the Western world, the first thing that we do is get some stimulus and inputs in the mining problem is our stimulus and inputs are from someone else. Someone else's agenda. It's either from social media, it's from the news, it's from working email, it's some kind of advertisement or marketing.
Speaker 0 00:42:07 And as soon as that hits you, you lose the ability to being your own world because you've dragged into someone else's when you drugged into someone else's world, you can't reflect, you can't navigate your wrong pipe work, so to speak. And what that does is it means that you're then drugged off on a little puff where somewhere that then takes you on your dad on not winding puff, being blown about from one section to the other. If you take your time in the morning, and instead of jumping straight into the world, you actually take some time to stay in your own realm. So the first thing I do in the morning is a workup. I wash my Fest and drink a glass of water. Well, that's for me, I'm there. And suddenly I'm hydrated and I'm refreshed and I'm present in myself. And then I made it to and take that time to connect to myself and best connect from the external world.
Speaker 0 00:43:10 But it becomes reflective practice for me. Now there's lots of different types of meditation and people need to experiment what would work for them. For some people it's not meditation, it's silence, it's prayer, it's yoga, but there's always some kind of reflective practice that you can use to go into your own mind and care into your own body and start listening to yourself. And that, again is something that practice meditation is like anaerobic training for your brand. And like, don't so many people going so meditation with expectation, don't go into meditation with goals. It's not going low and setting practice. Like don't expect to go to the gym a few times and then suddenly what like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Meditech consistently for a period, you will start to find that you can pull your attention around easier. You can focus more on doing the things that you needed to do.
Speaker 0 00:44:07 But what it also does is it opens a pathway of feuds and are of relevance to it. So I decided to up to the meditation and do 10 minutes of exercise. So something that then gets my cognitive processes flowing, or then listen to 10 minutes of a positive podcast. And this would be a great podcast to split across five days of a week and listen to gain insight from 10 minutes at a time. Then I read a few pages of a book quite often, something from before the world was full of technology, because those books were written when people didn't have all the shallow destructions to have the time to go really deep into concepts and explore them. And it's great to read from other people's perspectives in a positive frame and a context that can give you maybe one little nugget that you can then take and try and apply in your life.
Speaker 0 00:45:04 And then just go and look outside, get some sunlight in your eyes. And in that period, that's the time for you? The ultimate self care is in the morning to have a time that grinds you, that gives you a chance to reflect on yourself. I don't like to do a little bit of journaling. And again, writing is so powerful when it's not with massive intention, but it's designed to highlight and to harness some of our ability to get what we focus on. So write a little bit of what you're grateful for, or little things you want to achieve, or maybe a little bit about who you want to become. And it just, once again, primes you to look for those things in the world, you start to see more of them. It's practice. Every fin in the world takes practice. We don't suddenly give it walking when we're a child, because it didn't work.
Speaker 2 00:45:58 We practice and persevere don't. We
Speaker 0 00:46:01 Mean we don't, we don't stop riding our bike cause we fell off a few times. No reason at all. You decide that unless you can visibly tangibly, see it, surely it's not worth it, not worth practicing.
Speaker 2 00:46:13 Oh, or less less, you can do it straight away. And that, uh, yeah. Um, it there's, there's so much of what you described that is my own morning actually. Um, but absolutely wake up to your plan, not somebody else's and, and just carving a little bit of time, even if it's just a 15 minutes to start with, then it feels like you've won the day and you get the day off onto a great footing. And one thing I do going back to this sort of theme of gratitude is the first thing I do is be grateful for waking up because there's so many people every morning that don't get the luxury of doing that. And I think if you can just tap into that and practice doing that to your point, it starts to build, it starts to expand. It affects the degree of control and agency and choice that you have.
Speaker 2 00:46:58 And if you feel like you have choice, then you have enormous flexibility and you can explore some of those multiple planes and options that you have Lee. This is fascinating. We've gone well over the allotted time that we thought we were going to chat to. And do you know what? I think there's another couple of episodes in this content further down the line, but before we leave and before I kind of express my gratitude for you being on this podcast, if people wanted to get in touch with you or find out more about your approach to too many things, um, how can they do that? Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:47:30 The best ways would be to visit my website. <inaudible> dot co.uk on I'm on all the socials, most active on LinkedIn out lead chambers on Instagram, essentially, coach. That is amazing.
Speaker 2 00:47:43 Um, it's been an honor to chat with you. I do thank you for your, the depth of your, um, your analysis and your thoughts and, and willing to share your story, which is absolutely fascinating. And I say you've crammed so much into the first 35 years. Heaven knows what you're going to get up to for the next 35, but we'll certainly keep in touch. And I'd love to have you back on the podcast at a future episode, but for the time being, thank you so much.
Speaker 0 00:48:07 <inaudible>
Speaker 2 00:48:17 Another amazing guest on give yourself the chat there really enjoy chatting to Lee and his deep understanding of not only ancient philosophy, but modern practices in psychology and therapy and coaching. And I think it's one of those episodes you'll want to come back to time and again, and each time that you listen to it, you'll, you'll discover something new. I know I certainly will. If you've enjoyed that, then please get in touch with me at my website, Peter Lewis, coaching.com. And if you've enjoyed this episode, go and explore all the previous ones it's on all major podcast platforms and please get in touch and suggest which guests you'd like me to chat to, or which subject material like me to cover. But in the meantime, thank you so much for being a listener and sharing my content. And I look forward to seeing you on the next one.
