Joe Wicks on addiction, homeschooling and body image

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0:38Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This podcast puts failure in the spotlight and asks us what we learn from the moments in life that don't go according to plan. Because I firmly believe that most failure can teach us something if we let it. Every week I talk to a new guest about the times they failed and how their perspective on life and what success really means was shaped along the way. And I'm so excited to say this week for the first time, I have not one but two episodes to share with you. Count them, two. Follow along after this episode to my brand new Failing With Friends series for subscribers.

1:19Every week on Failing With Friends, I'll be going through your failures or questions with my illustrious guest. This week, Joe and I will be looking at failures from how to boil an egg to forming new habits. Can't wait for you to join us. And I would love to hear from you. If you'd like to get in touch, follow the link in the podcast notes. Get Failing With Friends episodes every week and all episodes of How To Fail ad-free. Just visit the How To Fail show page on Apple Podcasts and click Start Free at the top of the page to begin your trial. Or you can visit failingwithfriends.com if you're not an Apple user.

2:00Many of you will feel you already know Joe Wicks, and perhaps you do. Perhaps you were one of the 100 million viewers of his lockdown workouts, YouTube videos that not only kept a nation healthy and occupied, but which raised over£600 ,000 for the NHS and children in need, earning Wicks an MBE. Or maybe you've cooked one of the meals from his best-selling cookbooks, His first, Lean in 15, 15-minute meals, was published in 2015 and became the second biggest selling cookbook of all time, just behind Jamie Oliver. Perhaps you are simply one of his 12 million followers on social media, where he shares motivational quotes, inspirational stories, easy recipes, and cute family pictures of his model wife, Rosie, and three young children.

2:49Perhaps you have taken, like Wicks, to calling broccoli miniature trees. And even if you fit into none of these categories, Wicks has reached such a level of national recognition that the chances are you know who I'm talking about. And yet despite this success, teachers at his secondary school didn't think he'd amount to much. Growing up on a Surrey council estate, Wicks had a troubled, albeit loving, childhood. His father suffered from heroin addiction and his mother from mental health issues. Wicks' escape from the chaos was physical exercise, a message he became passionate about spreading. His latest book, Feel Good in 15, is a guide to using just 15 minutes a day to become healthier and more fulfilled.

3:35The best piece of advice my dad gave me was, if you're going to miss the bus, miss it running, Wicks says. So from that point on, I just always gave my all to everything that I ever did. Even if I know I'm not going to reach that goal and I'm going to fail, I'll give it 100%. Joe Wicks, welcome to How to Fail. I was mesmerised. I really loved that introduction. I was like a story. You're a great storyteller. You've done your research because everything was true and factual. And yeah, that was lovely. Thanks for that. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much for saying that you have inspired so many of us.

4:08And I actually started doing your at-home workouts before lockdown. I like to think I was ahead of the Oh yeah, before it was even cool you were doing the way on YouTube. And you were brilliant. I was in a tiny rented flat and I only had this like strip of space and I couldn't afford to join a gym. And so I had Joe Wicks and I want to thank you for that, as I'm sure many millions of listeners do. But I wanted to end on that quote, that idea of giving it your all, even if you're going to fail, because at least then you fail nobly. How do you feel about failure generally? Well I'm so glad you've done my work as that's really made me smile because yeah I love to think of everyone you know just giving it a go and feeling good and positive and stuff so I'm really glad you found them.

4:50In terms of you know that quote that my dad said to me you know it really it was like a lightning bolt he said Joe if you're going to miss the bus miss it running and I realised that what that means is you know sometimes you just know in your heart you might not get to that bus you might not reach that goal but if you didn't run for it you'll never know you might have got on that bus and actually reached that goal so I've applied that mentality really to kind of my whole life really since I was a sort of teenager with you know if you think about the boot camp in the early days you know you might have seen these videos of me handing out flyers at the station you know and no one would turn up and I had this mentality if I don't come back if I don't keep showing up then I'm not going to grow my business I'm not going to have a boot camp so I think that sometimes it's that mindset shift that you know I've just got to keep turning up and it will grow it will build and that's really a kind of testament to my career I think I've just been relentless.

5:34Did you know that you were destined to be successful or do you think it was purely just keeping at it and being relentless as you say did you have a bigger picture you know when you look at old archive footage of like musicians I'm thinking of like clips of Taylor Swift and she's like a little girl singing in the living room you're like she's I'm going to be a star I want to be a celebrity I want to be famous and some people have that from a young age I was never someone that like had visions or even self-belief that I could become anything more than a kid from a home of addiction I just thought this will be my life I'll probably repeat the cycle this is what I'm going to live in this chaos and this kind of environment for my whole life so I definitely didn't have ambition and it's not been even as I look at my success it's been such a gradual thing where I just was like sharing videos for fun you know I loved it I loved sharing videos I loved the interaction between sharing a video on Instagram and someone cooking it or me doing a workout and someone saying oh I just did this workout on Australia you know so it was a love for the movement and fitness and food that kind of built this career but it was never intentional and so I couldn't I never had a foresight that you know I was going to have tv shows and books and all that sort of stuff.

6:39But I think that's why people love you because they can tell that it's so genuinely intended and we're going to come on to your childhood in a minute because it relates to one of your failures but you as I mentioned in the introduction you came from relatively humble beginnings is there a sense that you don't want to allow yourself to get too big for your boots? I think it's just who you are isn't it like yeah I come from a council estate where like you know we didn't own houses we didn't have car like we didn't even own and everything was borrowed and hired and you know probably even like just council a lot of us were on benefits so it wasn't like we even owned property so when my life started to change it was amazing because it took away the stress of worrying about money like all I remember as a kid is my mum and dad fighting over money and you know worrying about school uniform and school bags and shoes you know that sort of thing so definitely changed my life But I think it's just in you, isn't it?

7:32What kind of person you are. I'm not someone who is greedy or I'm actually quite generous. By nature, I think that comes from my childhood and wanting to give back and help, I think, comes from the environment I grew up in. So, yeah, I think it's been a positive experience for me. I think I've used my energy and my experience as a child in a really positive way. Have you been able to help your family as well? Yeah, I know it's pretty cliche, but the first thing you want to do when you make money is you want to buy your mum's house. Imagine being able to buy your mum a house. I'm a gift of not having to stress about paying the bills and stuff.

8:02So when I got my first book deal, the advance wasn't that big, but because it sold so many copies, I got a huge royalty check. And I didn't buy myself a flat in London or buy myself a car. I bought my mum a council house, and she loves it. And every day she still says, I'm so grateful for that. You've given me such peace and such a security that she's never had. As a single mum raising three kids, it was all about just scrapping and trying to get by sort of thing. So that was the kind of first thing I ever did really for her. That's beautiful. I think part of the reason that your work resonates with so many people is because there's a straightforwardness to it.

8:37You do seem really positive and upbeat and you're very encouraging. And we live in an era where there's so much chatter around diet and exercise and whether you should be fasting or concentrating on your microbiome or looking at glucose spikes. And actually what you do is quite clear. what's your advice for anyone who feels overwhelmed by all of the noise out there around diet and fitness well even i as someone who's in the industry like and sort of understands a little bit about the body i still get confused by what i see you know certain people are so extreme in their views that one minute it's like you need to be keto and then it's you know we should be plant-based we shouldn't eat red meat and then someone's saying no red meat is amazing for us we need the iron we need you know and you know porridge is an amazing breakfast no but it's got these chemicals in you shouldn't eat oats and I'm like I get confused like I love porridge with raspberries and strawberries and stuff and they're like but there's loads of chemicals in strawberries the way it's produced and you know so you sort of feel like what can I eat what is good for me and I'm like about balance I really think it's about trying to encourage people to stop relying on ultra processed foods and cooking at home and it's tough right because we live in a world where we're so stressed we're so busy that we neglect ourselves and that really comes with food and it comes through exercise but yeah it's confusing I think it's about getting back to basics you know getting in the kitchen cooking meal prepping you know batch cooking a few things and that can set you up for success as opposed to always leaving the house empty-handed the only thing you've really got is processed or ultra processed foods but again it's not about removing it you're never going to live in a world where you can live a completely pure 100 % whole food diet it's not going to happen but you can do a few little things to reduce it you know carry your lunch to work or make a nice healthy meal that you can come home to and just there you can put your microwave dinner in the microwave because you've made it you know it's not like from a machine or processing a massive factory and still things like that I'm just real I'm realistic too I've got three kids like yeah I'd love to say I make my own fresh pesto and I make harissa paste and basil you know you know like I don't I buy ready-made pestos I buy ready-made tiger and curry paste and I make a really delicious healthy curry and my kids eat it do you know what I mean And that's more realistic than trying to say, you've got to do it this way and cut these things out.

10:41Because I still love processed, I love ultra processed foods. I love ice cream and chocolate and crisps. I love all of it. But it can't be all day, every day. You have to allow yourself those treats, but you'd be more balanced with it, I think. So last question before we get on to your failures, which you have said to me, quite rightly, you frame them as learnings rather than failures, which is absolutely what this podcast is all about. but I noticed that you posted on Instagram this week and you said I tried so hard to wake up and exercise this morning I failed I'm just not finding the mornings easy at the moment then you go on to say that's okay don't be hard on yourself Jo you were up late and didn't sleep well get to bed earlier tonight I thought that that was so vulnerable in a way that I think other people will feel seen by how difficult was that for you to open up about on that platform I mean I've always thought that you know the more honest you can be with people the more real and human you are the more you connect with people and I don't wake up thinking I'm going to send this revolutionary post that's going to like make everyone really think differently but I talked to myself and I thought I'm going to share this because like I got back from America and like it's been cold and dark and I think it's physically harder to wake up in the winter because you know you're naturally wanting to wake up with the sunrise so if you're getting up at trying to get up at 5 6 7 a.m it's really difficult so when I shared that that you know I didn't manage to do it because my little baby Lenny has been waking me up and I'm waking up not I'm not the body coach if I've had five six hours sleep I'm not exercising and I'm probably not going to eat healthy food that day either because your willpower goes out the window and I think yeah the more you share those things people go I'm so glad you shared that I really connect with that and I'm feeling exactly the same um and it did that post got probably 10 000 people out of bed because they're obviously scrolling right they're like if joe's saying that i'm gonna get up or if joe's you know feeling better after work i'm gonna try and so i do i do see the power that social media can have in a positive way but i'm not like overthinking i'm not thinking this is a hero post i'm like this is just a nice thing to say same when i have a binge like if i'm on a book tour and every time i go on a book tour you know you turn up and there's like brownies and cakes and there's nice gifts in the hotel and things and I eat that all week I look terrible I'm bloated and I share it and it ends up in the daily mail and I don't care because like you know it is what it is but I do think people really respond to that human element of like Joe has stressful days where he turns to food and Joe doesn't sleep well because his baby's waking up and he doesn't exercise for a few days rather than it be all perfect you know I'm not always happy I'm not always eating well and I'm not always really lean it's getting harder and harder like to stay in that position that state of like pure physical fitness every day when you've got kids it's you know it's it's about being realistic I think I see a lot of positive on social media although there's a negative I see when I share something in the morning um even this morning I said look I didn't manage to do a 30-minute workout I did a 15-minute workout and it's enough like I feel better and so that is a small little trigger for someone else that goes oh you know what I cannot be bothered to this I'm freezing I don't want to get out of bed but I'm just going to quickly put on my shoes and do a little HIIT workout with Joe or go for that walk and it's like I see the impact and I read the DMs and I respond and that's quite I quite like that I like that feeling of like getting moving you read the DMs and you respond that must be quite a task yeah that's my job my job like my I mean I have a business you know the app's a business there's 30 people Nicky's my brother he's the CEO but I'm not that involved in that part of it my job is to just get up film good workouts film great recipes and inspire and motivate and engage with my audience because that's all I do every day like I'm lucky that I've got Nikki because I can do that and I can build something great because I'm just doing the bit I love which is basically you know if you send me a voice note or a DM like I'm going to get back to you not every time it's obviously impossible but I work really hard on getting back to people that need it and sending a little voice note and that's really what I spend most of my time doing every day do you ever get emotionally drained and if so where do you put that I do get emotionally drained sometimes especially when it's around the mental health stuff because the more I talk about mental health the more dms are coming around that and I obviously did a documentary on BBC One around my parents mental health struggles and it was like during that point I was like overwhelmed by it and I didn't know how to kind of process it and almost offload the feelings um but now I think it's I've got a better balance I'm not I'm not on the phone as much I'm having sort of boundaries of it but yeah like you get messages from people that are kind of going through really difficult times and they think I'm their savior and I've got to give them the right advice.

15:02And if you do open a message and they see you've opened it, I could never ignore it. Yeah. So it's like, I just sort of wait till I'm in the right mindset and I'll flag it and I'll come back when I'm ready and I'll send them a nice message. And, you know, it might just be like pointing in the direction to something else or ask them a question, getting them thinking a bit differently. And that's really powerful for people because they're like, he's never going to reply. It's not Joe. He's got someone else doing it, but I've always done it. I've always done it myself. Wow, that's really impressive.

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16:19Let's get on to your first learning, your first learning around failure which is learning to become more compassionate about your dad's addiction you say that you were angry as a teenager what form did that anger take so the anger comes from the constant kind of resentment and disappointment of relapse like when you're with a living with someone with addiction and they're clean and you think everything's right in your life suddenly feels stable you know any moment it can just completely change and suddenly my mum's kicked him out he's living with his mum or he's in a rehab or he's on the streets whatever you know and so it was really I suppose always anxious and then as a kid I kind of absorbed it as a little kid but by the time I got to a teenager I was just done I was like I'm fed up with this why aren't we enough you know why can't you love us and just pushed him away I suppose and I realized and I heard this lovely term once that changed my kind of perception that the antidote to addiction is connection so rather than go I will only love you when you're clean I'll only be around you when you're not using drugs that's that's that's not that's conditional love whereas unconditional love is like look I know you're struggling and I want to be there for you and like giving him a cuddle and saying come around and spend some time together and that took me a long time to get to that point I'm very wise now but it was years of like really angry at my dad and resenting him and just genuinely thinking is he going to shoot up tonight and die you know and like just being and I realize I'm a carer you know even now I still worry about my dad all the time think about him every day like because he's never out the woods you always you know he's up and down with his you know depression and stuff so sort of worry about these things you know is he sober now yeah he's clean he's sober and we got a great relationship and I'm I really am so grateful like when I talk about gratitude that he survived addiction and that he you know because heroin's a tough drug to beat not many people can come out of it and he's still got his health as well which is great so he's still pretty young we still got a lot of years together hopefully and um we have a good relationship now but the compassion part comes from age and that wisdom and sort of reading about you know trauma and childhood addiction and you know like great people like Gabor Mate and like people I listen to wow that makes sense and I don't want to repeat the cycle with my children and stuff so yeah compassion grows I think I think as we age as we grow you become more compassionate towards everybody and the world I think um and that's positive if you've got a growth mindset I think did you witness him taking drugs?

18:39Never witnessing like physically like shooting up it was always sort of it was always done behind closed doors maybe in a bathroom we'd go out and come back but definitely the after effects because when you're doing that sort of drug it's not like you're running around chatting you're really fun dad and let's play games like he'd be asleep like a zombie sort of thing so that was always tough because I had so much energy as a kid and so when your dad's there on the sofa like that's really hard isn't it because he's there but he's not really there and then my mum was the opposite so erratic so chaotic OCD anxious eating disorders and I couldn't sit still and was cleaning the house and smoking cigarettes and drinking she lived off cigarettes and coca-cola my mum so she would drink like 10 cans of coca-cola a day and really I was in such an unhealthy environment I do you think how how have I come out of that you know I mean and I love food and exercise and I'm not an addict in that sense and I've always steered away from those kind of addictions but it all stems back to my mum and dad's childhood trauma resulted in them dealing with those feelings with drugs and addictions and stuff so I kind of used exercise to like I always talk about soothing myself with exercise because I would smash myself like run to school at like 10 years old and play sport all day long and exhaust myself because I didn't I just felt like it released it all for my body how did your brothers respond to it you mentioned Nikki and you've got a younger brother george yeah older brother nikki is 18 months older than me and my little brother's 10 years younger so we're all from the same mom and dad and they're not together now but yeah um different we've had different experiences because nikki was 18 months older so he remembers more he he saw more and heard more and he was much more i think he bottled up those emotions a lot more than me whereas i was like much more hyperactive probably adhd and angry and shouty and nikki was very much wouldn't talk about his feelings my little brother george i think he got kind of a bit of both he had my mum during the week and my dad during the weekends and you know yeah we've we've all kind of had a bit of a different experience really because I read somewhere that you didn't tell anyone at school what was going on is that right yeah because you can't really can you when you're a kid I mean this is obviously like 1985 I was born so the stigma around mental health was one thing and obviously imagine being like a seven-year-old kid and going into school and saying oh the police knocked down our door last night you know I just thought they going to take me away from my mum and dad if you keep asking these questions I'm going to probably crack because it's making me feel quite emotional but I'm so sorry sorry no I can talk about it but it does make me feel quite emotional like thinking myself in that situation especially with with kids now I can't imagine living in a house like that with my kids now like it would be so difficult for them um but yeah you just couldn't talk about it and so I was a naughty kid that just like stick him in detention put him in isolation like he's just a clown he's not but really I was just a kid that wanted someone to say what's going on Joe like talk to me do you know what I mean but you seek attention in other ways I think so yeah I was a deaf I was a I was a nice boy but I was disruptive and a clown and attention seeking and that affected my probably grades and subjects in things like maths and English but you give me put me in sport or PE or put me in um technology on building like something with my hands or art I loved it and even cooking I remember thinking I loved the used to call it home economics didn't they like cooking making like cookies and things I so I was very much more practical that was that energy that I just needed to be like hands-on as opposed to I couldn't focus and concentrate on those things because probably what was going on in my head just living in this state of like oh what's going on and going on to my mum's because I couldn't go in the house and be a normal kid and like running my shoes on and throw toys around it was like I'd be like hoovering my bedroom and stuff and like making my bed a couple of times a day and it would have to be super neat like so weird talking about now because it felt normal at the time but I'd have to hoover the carpet like really young and stuff like over and over again because um that was my mum's way of controlling you know the only thing she controlled was the food she ate or didn't eat and you know the house and cleaning put it this way if my mum turned to drugs my life would have been very different like thank god she she had something different because if my mum and dad were both addicts using one of them would would end up dead and probably would have been put in care 100 % because she was always clean, always the one like keeping the house tight, looking after us, you know, and that was there.

23:01She's so pivotal, I think, in that. So I'm really glad she didn't go down that path, you know, for us. What are your parents' names? So it's Regella and Gary. So what was the turning point for you with Gary? You described it there as a gradual process of understanding that the antidote to addiction was connection but can you remember one day or one moment where you suddenly thought oh this has to change there's a moment where I think I can think back to when I was 18 I went traveling to Australia and my dad flew out and he was clean for the first time in a long time and he he flew out to see him we spent three weeks together and it was just that first time we connected and just seeing his eyes like not using and just actually like looking at me and talking and like sort of seeing seeing me be happy and and seeing him be happy oh that was a really lovely it's all right it's a really lovely moment like it's a really lovely time I remember just thinking like this is what it should be like when you have a dad sort of thing so yeah we had a yeah we had a wicked time in Australia and that kind of built like the bridges I think and then I just sort of like loved him a lot because he was trying he was making he was just funny it's just like funny to be around him to see him not struggling like not suffering he was like just basically like it was like we were hang on a sec it was like we were just it's okay i'll get over this in a second once i let it out i'll bounce back you don't have to basically i just remember like yeah it's like we were like backpacking together it was hilarious and we were like going to um we like lived in a hostel and it's just fun like just so yeah that was a big moment for me to sort of like accept it accept him I suppose for it Joe you're an amazing no I can't get this out you don't have to I haven't talked like this for a while but yeah it was just like that was an important moment because then I accepted like the past the past we're having fun we're here now this is like so much fun and then when I came back I just think yeah he just got back into the into the fellowship and was going to meetings and he stayed clean for a few years but there's definitely relapses along the way but again rather than be like oh I can't stand this I hate you like I would just be like right come on I love you bro like not bro I do call him brother we call each other brother say I love you brother what's going on let's get together and you know get back to human connection again so I've let it out now feels good to cry it does feel good to cry I feel feel a bit lighter now it's an expression of your love but yeah you just you kept digging and digging I thought eventually something's going to break me but that was such a positive memory so yeah I'd say that was the moment where like we really formed a friendship and um and now today you know we we have something in common we love motorbikes so every year we go on a little motorbike trip together and you know just like me and my little brother george and my dad and we're creating memories that are so special that i don't look back angry and resentful because what's the point like i think you know that and even like i talk a lot about my mum being like kind of the positive energy in my life but i took so much from my dad's experience you know i didn't experiment with drugs i didn't i was so frightened of the consequences that I've learned a lot, just as much from my dad probably as I am from my mum, you know.

26:05They must be so proud of you. Are you aware that they are proud of you? Well, I am because my mum's very needy and she's very loving and she has to tell me every day how much she loves me. So she'll either WhatsApp me or send me a message saying that she's so proud. And, you know, even today with a book coming out, she's just like, you know, so proud of you. And it's nice to hear that because, like I said, we weren't expected to become anything. You know, We were just a family of wrong-uns. I always say the word wrong-uns because I felt like we were the wrong-uns. Even amongst the council estate, we were the ones that you just wouldn't want to be around because it was just madness and slamming doors and shouting and swearing.

26:41I was probably a bit naughty and stuff. You wouldn't look at me and think, that boy is going to go on to do something great and be amazing and help loads of people. It just wasn't even in my atmosphere to dream of anything like that. Yeah, they are proud. My mum and dad are proud. I think we're all quite a sensitive emotional bunch. We cry a lot, you know? My dad not so much, but my mum will cry a lot, and I think that's made me quite sensitive as well, I think. Yeah.

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28:48the one thing that always comes out whenever i've read or watched an interview with you is that your childhood was chaotic in many ways but it was filled with love and you haven't ever doubted that you are loved yeah so the absence of love what i've from all the research and all the kind of podcasts i listen to like the biggest factor in a child's development is love right so if there's absence of love and neglect and and you're not you know told that you're valuable appreciated and loved that's where childhood trauma comes from and that's what happened to my mom dad like my mom's dad left her when she was a baby she ended up in a care home her mom was very tough on her and she was always lacking love and and my dad in the same way his father ran away he moved to america and had loads of kids of another woman and you know he never told my dad he loved him until he was dying on his deathbed once you know and I imagine how hard that is because what's more important in life it's not like oh look at the job I've got mum or look how much money I've made it's like no it's like did your mum and dad love you we're always seeking that validation probably more from them than anyone ever right and so I think yeah you know I did always feel loved even though the family was like unstable and it was like a bit like what's happening next I still knew my mum and dad loved me and if they had a massive row and she said you know he's going I'm not having him here it's only because she didn't want us to be around it she didn't want us to be around it but she'd always let him back because she always wanted us to have a dad because she didn't have a dad so for 20 years back and forth I'll take him back I'll give him another go I'll give him another go but it's really hard when you're living with an addict I think having the love is what kept me stable and it made me so grounded because I do think without that you can really feel quite lost in the world if you feel like your mum and dad didn't love you or want you around.

30:33And I think that it enables you then to share that love with others who you've never met but who feel loved by you through a computer screen or through a phone screen or through one of your books. So that's a really generous act and actually talking about parental love brings us onto your second learning which is learning to be more patient with your kids so were you ever impatient with your kids so the reason I've put that down as a lesson learned is because I'm constantly having to learn patience and it's tested so much with children I've got three children a five-year-old a three-year-old and a one-year-old who spend most of their day arguing and fighting and so you're constantly you know having to challenge yourself and that default reaction that I have got so when I was a kid it was very shouty it was impatience intolerance you know there wasn't gentle parenting back then so it was like you know it was it was that it was that's my kind of reaction so I do get stressed out and I do feel myself boiling up and I I'm to learn to like treat people differently and understand that you know my child needs needs to be like I need to be understanding and I need to be compassionate and also you know not lose my shit sometimes because kids they don't have the rational brain yet they're not quite developed so that is something I battle with because when I do shout or if I walk out the room and slam the door I just feel so bad for like so many hours and it sits with me all day so like I'm trying to um yeah I've read a few parenting books and I listen to podcasts around you know just just seeing the child slightly differently and rather than them seeing them having a tantrum and you know you should just scream and shout at them to shut them up actually the best bit of advice I ever had was when your child's having a little tantrum or a little meltdown ask them for a cuddle because what they really wanted they're not communicating how they feel and so now my little three-year-old boy he's very sensitive he's super light he's up and down and he's he's really calm and then he gets really emotional he has big feelings as we say he now asked me for a cuddle when he starts to scream and cry he's like dad in the cuddle and even then sometimes oh I don't want to cuddle you but I'm gonna do it and I cuddle him and I feel a bit calmer and he feels calm and you can kind of work through it much quicker than you know shouting screaming and trying to sort of mirror their behavior but that is a skill and it's a challenge and it's a muscle that you have to work every day because it's so easy just to kind of lose it and you know shout back at them and then they what have you taught them you haven't taught them anything have you really in that moment do you think you see yourself as a child of their age when you're parenting your own children if that makes sense so you're not only parenting them but you're healing your own relationship with your own parents when you were that age yeah I think so I think there's a bit of that you know because you want to just be different you want to try and break the cycle and I think I did that with you know my kind of life and and and the way I went down a different route in terms of exercise as opposed to like you know life of drugs and crime and all that sort of stuff but yeah you know when you when you just see your children you understand like actually I was shouted as I was a kid and although I don't I don't hold it against my mom at all and I'm not like emotionally scarred from the time she screamed and shouted at me but you know I want to be a kind gentle parent I want to teach my children to like be able to regulate their emotions as opposed to um stop crying don't do that shut up you know and swearing at them because that's not really teaching them to deal with their emotions it's teaching them to just like conform to what you're saying but as an adult look I cry as an adult because maybe I cried as a kid sort of thing and I think yeah I think it's a good thing to teach your children that it's okay to have it's okay to be really happy and overexcited and be wild and be feral like my kids are feral but it's okay to also be angry and stressed because something hasn't worked out all right I can see you're wound up but can I help you sort of thing and then they can sort of problem solve a little bit it's just little things like that but I still get it wrong I still have times when I shout and even Rosie like she's so patient but everyone has a breaking point we all crack now and again don't we yeah I'm so glad you've spoken about this no one else has ever chosen this as a failure and yet it's so highly relatable or like almost every parent will relate to this so how much has Rosie helped you she's ridiculously like calm and so naturally like patient so for her her default setting is to be calm mine's to be shouting and basically mine's to be a two-year-old like and they call it the baboon brain like just yeah irrational and just like mirror and just not deal with it and just probably either scream and shout or just run away and walk out the room and not come back for a few hours whereas Rosie's really calm so I I always observe and think how is she staying so calm like in the car when we're on a plane when the kids are fighting and so I've really learned from her just to kind of again yeah just respond slightly differently and but yeah you know like i said the three-year-old and five-year-old they love each other but they are fighting every minute of the day and we're with them every day because we homeschool so we are with them 24 7 and it's intense so you're like a teacher a parent a referee you're trying just to constantly make them negotiate away around their arguments and like just conflict resolution and that's what that's the hardest part of parenting it's not even the sleep it's the fighting because they're constantly at it and you're like what are you arguing about oh I've got three grapes he's got four grapes and then you realize I can avoid this just give him four grapes each do you know what I mean make sure that they've got what color straw do you want Lenny I want the blue one what color straw do you want Marley I want the blue one oh look guys I've got two blue straws you know I mean you start to just think like that everything's got to be equal you say that you homeschool your children there you have attempted to send them back well we're only a few months into it it's a good question because obviously a lot of people ask me oh what's it like is you know and I'm so blessed that I can do it because I can be at home with Rosie I think if she was on her own or I was on my own it would never happen but you know we are a team and we split things and I'll do a little bit of them and then she'll do a bit and you know I'm around them a lot so I think it is tough and we're not sure it's an all an forever thing but we're doing it for a year see how it goes and you know she went to school last year but I think give it a go this year and we'll reassess it in the at the moment we're getting on with it yeah but it's the little boy he's gonna be hard still okay indie indie will sit and do phonics she'll do a little maths work but with indie it's been an easier journey but i think with marlou maybe we'll reconsider who knows one of the things that i was very intrigued by again when it came to reading interviews um in the run-up to this episode was how relentlessly obsessed journalists have been with trying to find your dark side it's like so many interviews start off with joe wicks can't possibly be as positive I know, I've noticed that too.

36:56But I was like, yeah, it's kind of like this angle of like, he can't be that nice. He's got to be, he must be a bit more sinister. There's something I've got to uncover. And I used to get that all the time with like Men's Health, with, you know, You Magazine, even like The Times, you know, The Sun, all these papers. But I don't know, I'm just like, that's okay. I don't mind, but they always end up writing a nice article about me in the end. But they do have that kind of perspective of, there's got to be something about him that isn't quite right or he's not quite being as genuine online as he is.

37:23but you know I am I am kind of my true self I'm my most truest self I think on Instagram stories because it's literally me I'm on my phone I'm with the kids I'm with Rosie I'm not like pretending to be anyone it's just me and that's that's my truest self I think even more so than a podcast or a tv show because I'm always like oh I'm self-conscious I don't want to be on tv like so my stories is where I'm my realist I think you're self-conscious yeah I mean I was on this morning cooking today and I'm not like I'm not like Jamie Oliver like I want to be on tv I don't really, well, I don't find it quite difficult.

37:55Do you? Yeah, because it's not my comfort zone, is it? I only do it a few times, like once a year. But, I mean, if I really love cooking and have a TV show, wouldn't I? I could have a cooking TV show. But I only do TV when it's like talking about the mission or if I'm doing more of the exercise. I think if I'm doing exercise, I'd do a live TV workout today, right now without even thinking about it. But the cooking and the talking and just, yeah, I don't know. I'm not naturally like, I'm not desperate for that, you know, in my life have you ever felt self-conscious about your own body of course yeah I wrote my dissertation at university it's so apt and so it's even now it's so um relevant to me as an individual I studied the the impacts of sort of male body image on like social social physique anxiety so measuring you know about men that kind of think they're too skinny or they want more muscle and it's like you know it's a real thing and so I did I always felt I was very skinny you know always wanted to change how I looked and I think you know that's kind of the masculine image isn't it like you need to be a men's health cover model and you need to have really big legs or you're not going to be attractive to women and you need to have really big muscles and abs and stuff and I yeah I definitely think like that's that's been something that probably got me exercising in the early days um but now my mindset has shifted a lot more towards the mental health benefits of exercise you know how I feel as opposed to trying desperately to stay really lean all year round it's really hard it's not that funny though I love my food you know I love eating I'm really glad that you're talking about this my husband and he's spoken publicly about this so he won't mind my saying it, has body dysmorphia.

39:23I mean, it's a pretty full-blown case. And he looks great, but no matter how many times I tell him that, it doesn't make any difference to how he feels about himself. And I think that that is so much more widespread amongst men than we maybe think. And I wonder if you have any advice for someone who is currently suffering from that kind of condition where they're just constantly down on themselves and exercising maybe to an extreme. When I think back to my early days of seeing like the perfect physique, like it would be like Van Damme in a movie or, you know, like Dolph Lundgren in Rocky, or you'd see like maybe a men's health cover.

40:06But now you wake up and the first thing you see is like 19, 20 year old kids with the most beautiful physiques, like muscly ripped. And you think that's normal right same with girls you wake up and see the one percent of incredible fitness models around the world and so it's not it's a walk perspective like what the female and male body should really look like and I'm 38 and I've been trying to build muscle really for like 20 years if well 25 years and it's really it's really hard I'm probably no bigger really than I was when I was 18 you know but I feel good I feel strong I feel like I'm healthy but building muscle takes if you're going to go down that route obviously there's like people doing steroids but the natural route takes years and years to build muscle and loads of food loads of sleep loads of heavy weights and loads of food and so comes to the point where even if you gained muscle let's just say i spent three years trying to build muscle and i was eating three and a half four thousand calories a day and i went back to my usual diet and sort of did HIIT training all that muscle just falls off your body it doesn't stay there you know so it's the same with um you know fat loss if you get lean you know and you suddenly increase your calories and you're not exercising you're going to regain the body fat so i think what's important is to not chase an impossible goal like even myself i'd love to say oh i look like i did eight years ago when i was on the front cover of men's health but i don't think i'll ever get back to that and so i'm okay with that you've got to kind of accept that your skin changes you know we get wrinkles we get softer we don't have as much muscle you know it's part of life isn't it and it's coming to terms with that and accepting that you can still have a really strong physique you can still be healthy and happy but not have your abs pop in you know your triceps and your muscles looking all plump all the time because it's it's just hard the body is constantly I mean if you think every day we're um not degrading is the wrong word but we're like you know we're breaking down as opposed to kind of rebuilding and so it does get harder with age yeah and find some peace with that I think well with those wrinkles come wisdom although I have to say I'm staring at your face there's not a single wrinkle on it I'm thinking the same about you as well and I'm 38 you know you look amazing but yeah I think well you've obviously lived a healthy life would you say you've lived a healthy life yes yeah and you're not a big drinker and not a big smoker and stuff like that I don't smoke I have the odd drink um but I love vegetables there you go and I love water and vegetables and I've come to love exercise as well like in my 30s I discovered it and partly because of Joe Wicks oh that's where it's working yes I think like I said it's just like small little changes and sometimes you fall in love with food or exercise quite late you know quite later in life and that's fine but I think the physical thing we're so hell-bent on trying to like look younger and and like have the body that we had when we were 19 or you know if you're a woman you have a baby you're like i want i want to get rid of the mum time i need my abs to be how they were why isn't my skin the same you can lose weight and build muscle but the skin may never be the same and like that's okay right you've had three or two you've had two or three kids and you're you've built babies into the world like it's kind of trying to appreciate i know it's hard because we're always going to be we're always going to be self-conscious of our body image even if i say this now like i still want to feel i i still don't want to have a big belly i wouldn't feel confident pulling my top off on the beach for the kids having a big belly like so I'm still like conscious that it will always be a factor but it's not the driving force that gets me exercising in the morning when you are on the beach with the kids are you always conscious when you take your top off that people will know who you are and that you have to recognize those abs no I don't think that I think they recognize my face and my annoying voice before they hear my see my body but I don't know yeah I suppose there's like a pressure to kind of be in shape but yeah I'm also like okay with the I am nearly 40 and I'm not going to be like ripped and lean forever, but I still think I can be inspiring because I can still be, you know, can you say middle-aged at 40?

43:36I don't know. Yeah, dispiritingly it is. A middle-aged guy who's still motivating and inspiring. You know, it might not be 18-year-old kids or young people doing it, but I can still get people moving and that's kind of my goal. I mean, I still have literally three or four-year-old toddlers doing my hey-duggy workout, so I'm still getting the kids moving and that's kind of where a lot of my energy goes. But I know there'll be a point one day where I'm not as relevant to that audience, but I'll still be getting adults moving, hopefully, and still look at Mr. Motiver. He's 70 years old. He's still going.

44:03Yeah, he still does online fitness and corporate gigs and stuff. Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's 76. No, I love Arnold. I think he's inspiring still. I think so, too. And actually, it brings us on to your third and final learning, which is about consistency, which is something that Arnold Schwarzenegger definitely epitomises. so as you put it learning to stay focused and being consistent in life and you say that all of your success has come down to just showing up and keeping going and having focus yeah I really do I really think it's such an important thing that we don't often talk about because it's almost like well with social media you can just open an Instagram account and you're gonna have an you're gonna have an amazing brand and everyone's gonna buy it or you're gonna have an Instagram fitness channel and everyone's gonna follow your videos but it just doesn't happen like that it takes time like my youtube took you know seven years to build up and then there's then the p which i moment happened or you know my my recipe books you know i was sharing thousands of recipes before i got offered the book deal now maybe hundreds maybe maybe five or six hundred recipes before i got the book deal but by the time the books have come out i have i have shared thousands of recipes so it's about consistency it's about showing up and if i think back to the boot camp days you know and that's another thing that always makes me cry when i think about how tough it was because I'd leave my flat in Surbiton and I'd have a trailer.

45:16I'd be lugging all the kettlebells and all the stuff and I'd cycle to Richmond thinking like, there's going to be 20 people there and there's no one there. And I thought, right, what are my options? I either quit and go back to being a labourer or I go and work in a gym, which is fine, but I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to have my own business and stuff. So I just kept going to the station, flyering, flyering and turning up. And I think we often forget that. You just see the success. You don't see those years of building up to that moment where like you've actually like had a little breakthrough or you've got a new opportunity or a new you know something's come come to you did you almost give it all up do you know I can honestly say I never ever thought about giving up and I remember I used to come home so I'd ride from Surbiton to Richmond Old Deer Park no one would turn up I'd do the flying I'd ride back to Surbiton and as I was coming in the door it'd still be dark and my brother was like anyone turn up and he he was all he was always what I love about Nicky right he's always been so supportive but he never once said like why don't you pack it in you know why don't you why don't you sack it off and give it up it ain't working is it joe like nobody said that um and now nikki's the ceo of the company and like it's an amazing business you know that is helping millions of people and i'm so glad he didn't say like joe like come on mate you've been at this for like two years it ain't growing um and i think yeah i just thought i've got no option i don't i don't want to i don't want to work for somebody else i want to i want and for me it was always about time i I always used to think because I was quite nomadic.

46:40I always used to just take my student loan and like piss off to Thailand or India. I thought I want to be nomadic. I want to be able to say I can work for a month or six months and I can go away for a month and I can sort of own my own time. And I always thought about if I was employed, I'd have 20 days a year. And that was a thing I used to think about. So I think that gave me the ambition to build my own business and be independent. And even now, like I could work 12 months a year and do double the things I do and have double the opportunities and probably more money in the bank. But I don't because I value time with my family.

47:11So, you know, I go to America, I have time away and I, you know, the business suffers when I go away. But I still don't care because I would never give up these years of my kids just to say, oh, the business is bigger. We've got another hundred thousand subscribers. That just doesn't motivate me enough to like sacrifice that time. So, yeah, consistency is so important. And that can be applied to like, you know, school, to work, to everything in life. And people, I think, get so knocked back by failure and rejection, they just give up. But we can all do a lot more than we think, right? If we actually didn't hear the voice of failure in our head and we hear the voice of, I say the cheerleader, I've got a cheerleader.

47:46So my voice kept saying, Joe, there's no one there today. Like, come back tomorrow, there might be one person or come back the next day. And so it was always positively reinforcing that belief as opposed to, Joe, what are you doing? Like you owe your dad two grand, you owe your mum two grand. And that was like four grand. I was like, I'm in debt for life. I'm never going to pay it off. But, you know, I just kept doing it and kept turning up. And it did become a little nice little business, paid them off. And then I bought mum a house and she's chuffed. And life changed because of that mentality, I think.

48:16Have you always had that cheerleader or was it something that you developed? I think we all have an internal voice I think I don't know if you're born with it or if it's because of your surroundings but I've never had a voice saying you're not going to do this it's going to fail just I don't know I don't know where it comes from so like my mum and dad would like cheer me on or I've had anyone pushing me um but I don't know I just I thought well the options are if I listen to a negative voice I will quit and I will fail and you know I wasn't trying to become a big businessman I just wanted to have a little boot camp in Richmond like genuinely 20 people I'd have been like 20 people paying me£10 an hour.

48:53That's£200 an hour. That'd be amazing. Imagine that. And then suddenly like your goalposts shift a bit and you get, what about if I had an online plan and a hundred people signed up a week? Wow. And then, you know, a thousand people a day might join the app. And so my world's completely changed. But because I had that simple mindset of just keep doing it, like you love it. What's the point of quitting? Like, keep going with it. Have you got a positive voice too? Yes. But I feel very lucky with that because I just feel I'm innately more optimistic than not. And I feel very lucky to have that because I know that there are lots of people who don't.

49:28And like you, I'm not sure where it comes from, but I do know that resilience can be learned and you can get better at it and you can flex it like a physical muscle. And so every time I've got through a failure, I've also thought, oh, well, that's made me feel really strong because I've survived it. And I think that's the key, isn't it? just sort of getting through. Yeah, I really agree with that. I think you can teach resilience, you can build that inner strength and that kind of mentality. And you've got to challenge the voice. If the voice is saying to you, like, you are ugly, you are not beautiful.