How Founders Train Mindset Under Pressure with Simon Jeffries

0:00What the military does is it trains you in your skills, in your drills, shooting, marksmanship but it also trains certain mental models and gives you support systems so that you can put that into action under extreme pressure and combat because you can have the best skills in the world if you aren't able to put that into action it's almost useless i quit my job in london both moved in so we're in our mid-30s with my parents back on a small farm in worcester we're broke when we decided okay let's do our own thing we chase trying to make money let's pick something that we think will make us money and it just didn't work and so at that moment it was like you know what screw it let's just do something we have always cared about what we've always been passionate about and that for us was always mindset and performance welcome to screw it just do it the show for those who decided to screw it and just did it this is the podcast that brings you face to face with the entrepreneurs and business rebels who threw caution to the wind and built something extraordinary.

0:59So Simon, before we get into the frameworks and mindset work, I want to start with your screw it, just do it moment. So was there a specific point either during your time in the Special Forces, the transition out in the corporate world, where you realised you couldn't keep doing what you were doing and you had to take that leap into doing something uncertain? So the first one that jumps into mind, the biggest one that jumps into mind, and I'll paint the picture for you. So I'd left Special Forces, hung up my kit, kind of done everything that I wanted to do in that world. And I didn't really know what was next, didn't have a clear plan, and ended up getting a job in a consultancy in London.

1:38I thought I'll give that route a go. Very quickly realized that that wasn't for me. And so a couple of months of really trying to dig in and figure out what that path would look like. And for me, it was a bit of an epiphany around online business, specifically online because the geographical freedom appealed to me if I can work just from my laptop and removing the salary ceiling being my own boss queue teaming up with another guy that I serve in the military reading all the books on business you know telling ourselves we're going to be making our millions in two years we you know we're never going to make any of these mistakes that the books tell you to avoid fast forward 18 months we've made every mistake we've we've blown through all of our savings, both our relationships, we were in long-term relationships ended.

2:27And so we ended up at this point, both, I quit my job in London, we moved, both moved in, so we're in our mid-30s with my parents back on a small farm in Worcester. So at a time when all of our peers were getting married, buying houses, you know, getting the promotions in their jobs, we're broke we're single we're both living back at home with my parents we're sharing a ford focus between us that cost 375 quid um and you know we're sharing that we used to actually organize dates at the same time and location so we could share the car to get there so we were at this point where it didn't look great on paper and the screw it just do it moment was a realization that when we started, when we decided, okay, let's do our own thing, we chased trying to make money.

3:18We're like, let's pick something that we think will make us money. And it just didn't work. And so at that moment, it was, it was like, you know what, screw it. Let's just do something we have always cared about, what we've always been passionate about. And that for us was always mindset and performance. And we're like, let's just start something in that. And I didn't know exactly how it would look, you know, what we were going to deliver, basically all uncertainty but we had nothing to lose and so let's just follow something we care about and that we know we can help people with and that we saw problems with out there and that journey you know is why I'm talking to you here now so start the natural edge and sort of eight years later that this is where we are so that for me was a that really was that big screw-up moment is follow something we care about as opposed to just trying to make money and the difference in that journey was has been night and day it's a great picture that you painted to be honest with you so i'm glad i'm glad you did that i the forward focus was a definite definite visual image for two of you sharing that the millennium focus as we called it in focus even better um and both of you living back at your parents um so what what finally made you act then was there um a day uh conversation between you're both still together now as business partners both business partners i would i'd say there's probably two kind of parts on that journey.

4:42So the first one is going back to that consultancy in London. So I just really, like I said, I realized very quickly that just wasn't the path for me. The way I figured out, and I sometimes get messages from people asking, you know, when you felt stuck, when you felt like you were stuck in a ruck, you didn't have that path forward. And for me, that was the first time I was very lucky that from a young age, I knew that the military was my path. And so my early years were when other people were perhaps struggling with what do I do after school or college or what's my path in life. That was always very clear to me.

5:16And so I was very lucky to have that. And I followed it to the point where I felt like I got everything I wanted from it. And then when I left, it really was that, what does life look like going forwards? I've got no idea. The thing that helped me, and the phrase that I like around this is, you don't stumble on significance. so I think and this kind of ties into my whole philosophy around mindset is you know you're just going to have that idea or you're just going to come to that realization as opposed to it takes work we have to be proactive with it what I did was I just got a notebook and it was almost like my future like future design and I just asked myself the same questions every day over and over again what do I want my life to look like what do I want to be doing what's the work that I want to do?

5:59Where do I want to be living? Like, how does that look? And I just percolated that brainstormed. I'd message people on LinkedIn, if I had an interest in an area and just say, you know, look, could I just pick your brain for 15 minutes? I'm interested in this field. And so I just did that every day. And I was just scribbling notes and spider diagrams and all of this. And after about two months of doing that, and I can tell you exactly the moment I was sat on a bus going into work and I was reading Tim Ferriss's four-hour work week and I had an epiphany moment and it was book online business I was like that's it that is the answer it's geographical freedom I'm on my own bus it removes the salary ceiling but that's not it's not magic that's so a similar process as if if you've ever forgotten someone's name and it's on the tip of your tongue but you can't recall it and then three days later you're having a shower and you're like Alex, Alex Chisnall, that was his name.

6:54The brain's just been percolating that in the subconscious until it's finally found it in the depths and pulled it up. So when we have these epiphany moments, it's really the creative process. We input whatever it is we're interested in, and then we allow space for that to percolate. And that's the key. We need to give it some space. And then at some point, you will start to have some realizations or quotation mark epiphany moments around it. And so that was like a really key moment is that's the path that then led to, you know, trying to figure out what that looked like. And I had no idea, but I was very clear and it still is like that was, was the path.

7:30So that was sort of one moment that led to it. And then we went the journey of just following, you know, trying things, trying everything, trying lots of stuff, but trying to make money as opposed to, I guess, one following something we cared about and really putting value at the forefront of it. And then that secondary moment was the and I think we'd avoided this in the beginning because I think in our heads we're like I don't know how you know we're not pts we're not nutritionists how does that how does that even look but at that moment when we kind of had nothing to lose for me it was well we do have nothing to lose so let's follow that and explore it and just see what happens so it's actually quite freeing and looking back now Simon what changed because you made that decision did everything change or bit by bit?

8:17I would say it checked yes everything changed in the sense that it immediately felt so I talk a lot about alignment so when I was in the military what I was doing was very aligned with who my authentic self and so even though there was a huge amount of challenge and hardship that you go through it never felt like suffering or even stressful to be honest because there was that alignment so it's still very hard but it wasn't suffering and I think people confuse these two things and they're not the same when I got that job in London it was the way I describe it was like a constant friction like it just was so misaligned with really who I was that just everything felt difficult even though on paper it was a lot easier making that switch to start in the natural edge again there's been so many dark times on the roller coaster as you know just as in any business but because it's there's always been that alarm like I actually really believe in this and I believe in what we're doing and helping people with these changes that is what for me pulls me pulls me through those moments I think there's a lot of talk around you know business should you follow your passion should you follow should you just follow something that's going to make you the most cash I don't I don't think it necessarily has to be passion but I think there has to be value alignment so and it depends how you link that maybe you see an opportunity to make money and within that you're like well that's going to allow me to do this for my family or allow me to support this group of people and so there's a kind of deeper purpose within it I think and I'm sure there are some people I think there's very few people that purely being driven by the money is going to get them to where they want to be they may still be successful but I think there's going to be a lot of dissatisfaction at the end of that where they think they're going to find happiness yeah no i agree and i've spoken to enough people through the podcast you know hundreds and hundreds of people and you do get that odd person who will literally just steadfastly say that they're motivated by money and then you go away afterwards thinking but you know underneath it all are you really happy um are you living you know your the life that you really envisaged you know once you kind of strip away all the toys that they've managed to get from that i don't know um tell me a little bit um about the business and how that looks now and how that's changed over over the last eight years then Simon and how do you and and your business partner maybe maybe give him a shout out um and and how you kind of structure those roles within the business as well so it's been a a huge evolution and I think so now having been in this predominantly who I work with are business owners um or senior level c-suite in businesses and the common theme I see is that no matter what the business is whatever you think it's going to be at the beginning there's probably going to be several changes um that will look quite different that you hadn't even been able to even predict that's certainly true for us so i started it very lucky so uh john who i started the business with we served together in the military um and then after leaving teamed up very lucky that we have complementary skills i quite like doing the creative side of things and writing and I well I don't mind doing the filming now I hated it in the beginning but one of us had to do it whereas John's skill set is much more analytical he's got computer science background so it's been an amazing complement of skills in that he could facilitate all the technical side and I could do the creative through the through the journey but it's changed a lot I would say that the first three years we tried to almost do a sort of one and done service because we didn't really see that out there.

12:03You know, everyone would talk about fitness here, nutrition over here, maybe there's some sleep here, mindset there. And we said, well, why don't we just do what you can come in and we'll cover all of this for you. Funny old thing, there's a reason people don't do it. And the big problem with it is it's incredibly hard to market because in either one of those, there's a battle to market, to get your message across and get people to understand. And what we were trying to do is overcome the hurdle of you have to do everything. and then overcome the individual hurdles within each of those. And it just always felt like an uphill struggle.

12:36When we then switched to much more around mindset and performance, we really just looked at what is our strength and our real interest because we hired some PTs and nutritionists to help with the other side and it was the mindset and performance. So we were like, let's just double down on that. Almost overnight, it was like 80 % easier. So this whole sort of just strategic shifts in business, when you make the right ones, you're like, oh, that takes us to the next level. So that, I say, was one big shift. And then from that point, it's really been in refinement. Like I've spent, and it has taken a long time to really understand what stops people from showing up and essentially being at their best, whether that's in their relationships, as a partner, as a parent, in their business, you know, for themselves, with their fitness.

13:24And it really applies to business as well. I think the way to term this is essentially our performance. So our performance is how do we show up day to day? As we were chatting about before this, you know, business is incredibly hard. I'd say the hardest part is really our mindset and how we show up because there's so much uncertainty and struggle and hardship through that process that if you're not able to manage that, it makes it very hard to make consistent progress. And so if we think about this, you can kind of think about this as an equation. We have our skills, our talent, our experience, multiplied by your performance, and that gives you the result.

14:02So a good example of this is what the military does is it trains you in your skills and your drills, you know, shooting, marksmanship, for example, but it also trains certain mental models and gives you support systems so that you can put that into action under extreme pressure and combat, because you can have the best skills in the world if you aren't able to put that into action it's almost useless you know a very easy example is penalty shootout you know very talented skilled football players put them under the extreme pressure of a penalty shootout in a world cup and it's almost it goes to pieces they aren't able to call on that talent and experience you know a military kind of example would be there's plenty of world-class shooters civilians that are much better marksmen than anyone in the military But if you put them into combat, it would be useless because they haven't built the mental models, the structures around that to be able to put it into play.

14:58It's no different in business. You can have amazing skills in marketing or pitching or sales. But if you are overwhelmed with stress, you procrastinate, you slip into perfectionism, you can't switch off in the evenings, you're full of self-doubt, then you it's going to be very hard for you to show up as your best and actually put those skills into practice to get the results that you want and and what do you think it actually means to to treat mindset as a skill you can train what does that what does that look like so i would actually this has also been a bit of an evolution um on on this journey is that it's not just mindset so i would i would term our ability to show up and be at our best that's really what discipline it's like no matter how you feel no matter what your mood is no matter what pressures you're facing you are able to show up and do the job maybe that's as a parent maybe that as a partner again or in business and so what do we need for that and really it's it's three components you can think of it as a tripod so we need to make sure that our state is regulated so this is the body really it's a nervous system so all the things that tie into that are you know how you start and end of the day, your sleep, your circadian rhythm, stress management, your hydration, what you're eating, time outside, movement.

16:19It's all the stuff that daily habits that we know either make us feel good or bad, essentially. The more dysregulated your body is, you know, high stress, low energy, fatigued, it's going to be very hard to then do anything around the mindset side and kind of take control of that. Because when we're in those states, we're reactive, we snap, we lose our patience, we worry more. we're just not in control of ourselves so we need a regulated state the second part is the mindset component basically outside of i would say elite sport nobody actively trains this so in the military it happens by default as you go through that system so as you go through training the very nature it's by the very way it's structured because you're immersed in that environment you are essentially building new mental models so how you cope with pressure for example how you perceive certain situations that allow you to go into the arena of combat and still function elite sport obviously does this very overtly they hire performance psychologists to train mindset which should tell us everything we need to know we look at athletes we hold them up as an example and then we don't do what they're doing which is training mindset so if you think of your brain is essentially like software so you can think of the body as hardware and your mind as software for for all of us that code you know if you think of the matrix and you've got the lines of code on the screen how we interpret situations how we view ourselves our internal self-talk it's essentially just it's it's been written for us without us consciously doing it so basically since the day that you were born the schooling systems you've been through you know your upbringing the environments you've been in every experience that you've had has formed how you think about yourself and how you think about in the world or think about the world should I say it's why you can have two people who are in the exactly same situation and one is really stressed and worried and the other one's calm and confident it's a result of those that internal software those mental models that we have that's all trainable like we but it has to be an active training process.

18:29So if we think about when we train the body, we have a structured program, we may go to the gym, we'll go for runs, we have certain exercises, we know what they do. We look at our diet, we look at all these things around it that helps us change the body to become stronger and fitter. And yet when it comes to mindset, we're talking about complex neural pathways that have formed over decades. We read a book, we listen to a podcast, we watch a video on YouTube. It's never going to change anything. We have to follow the same route that athletes do. So we need a structured, consistent way to retrain those models.

19:07And then the last component on that tripod is essentially our structures, our habits. So how we set up our days to make it as easy as possible to get the results that we want. If any one of those three things, if your state is not regulated, if you are not training your mindset, and if you have poor structures and routines, it all falls down it all collapses and so we need that three tier those three pillars of the tripod for us to show up and perform our best and when you have that that is what you do you turn up at work you're focused you're productive you're consistent when you come home you're able to switch off you're present um and for ourselves you know we're consistent with our workouts we're we feel good in ourselves we're confident and that's really when life starts to feel good despite what's happening it can be a huge amount of hardship but we feel in control to get to that state when all all three are functioning um and and like you to kind of move on tell me about you know the framework that you've developed but before that are you looking at the habits that we've all formed over those years and how to actually break some of those habits so that you're actually able to um be open to using a framework that you teach the what I would say so when people come to are interested in the coaching the way I describe it is they feel like they're not in control that life is happening to them and they are just reacting to it and almost firefighting on a day-to-day basis and then the switch is they feel in control of life and they're driving it forward so the first thing to really do is just start so most people never stop and really ask why am I doing these things so why is it that I've fallen into these daily habits or why is it that I react in this way you know maybe there's a certain trigger with your partner or someone at work or certain situations where you just get pissed off you get frustrated you get angry actually stopping a lot why does this really trigger me what is the call like how am I viewing this that is causing this thought or emotion to come up because once we start to get that information then we can start to change it if we understand a bit about the why then we can be much more proactive with okay i understand why it's happening and if i reframe it this way or start to build you know whatever the training process is in then we can change it in the same way of physical training we need to know well what are you eating right now what are you doing or not doing with your exercise what is your sleep like If we understand that baseline, then we can start to change it.

21:39With a little bit of research I've done, you talk about focusing on who you want to become. And you alluded to it earlier, Simon, rather than what you want to achieve. Why is this identity-driven first mindset so powerful, do you think? Because you will always, everything you do in your life is driven by your identity. So for all of us, whatever you're doing, you will always default to how you see yourself and how you see yourself within the world. So we all love to think that we're going through the world in a very sort of conscious, logical way and we're making choices consciously and logically.

22:14You know, we're really not. The research is very clear on this. We are reacting or showing up based on how we see ourselves and see the world. just one sort of simple example on this on how these kind of models are formed within us so there was a point so my partner Mel and I were moving from Manchester to Bristol there's a bit of time in between the houses where we stayed with my parents for a few weeks my parents have been together for a long time you know long long marriage but they do communicate in this sort of low level like bickering kind of manner and the first few days that we were that we were there Mel was a bit on edge she's like oh my god I'm witnessing a divorce happening here and I was like what you worried is they're just checking about breakfast this is completely normal and what she one of the first things she said after that was I now understand why you sometimes talk to me and communicate in a way that really gets my back up that you think is totally normal in a relationship I then get annoyed you then get annoyed with me because you don't know why I'm annoyed and it turns into this argument because I just built this so this is the example of that mental my communication in relationship mental model was exactly that and so I was talking in a way that was quite abrasive so now that I understood that and Mel understood it we could kind of work on it but even now and this was a few years ago I still have to consciously catch myself because my default is to slip back into that because that's what I've known for a few decades so for all of us the way that you react or respond to anything in your life to certain situations to how you see things it's just a result of this conditioning through your life like again everything that's happened to you but because most people nearly everyone is not consciously aware of what those beliefs and models are that drive those thoughts and emotions basically how they show up is random they have good days they're bad days and they don't understand any correlation as to what causes that whereas when you understand to understand this and take control of the process you can really start to change it so that in the ways you don't like about yourself you know when you do things you're like oh god i've done that again i wish i wouldn't do this or i wish i could be better at this where you actually start to change that and that totally transforms how you experience life on a day-to-day basis and that is really what changes everything interesting thing um so maybe chat a little bit about um the lessons um from the special forces and you know adding into the neuroscience that you alluded to before um tell me a little bit about how you've managed to um put together a framework and and what does that work uh how does that work in real life for people listening who are a ceo um who are an md who are you know c-suite level um wannabe founders even who are kind of taking those first steps um how does that work how do you how do you make that work so i'll just give a simple example of let's take how we deal with mistakes and failure because i think that's a big one for a lot of people so one of the hardest things about selection for special forces is the fact you you get very little feedback so particularly in the jungle phase so you start off selection on the hills phase which is the brecon beacons where you're marching around with their heavy backpacks, Bergens from different points.

25:48That really isn't selection. All that is is to get your plane ticket to the jungle. It's just a culling process, really. Jungle is really where selection takes place because it is such a hard environment to just live in, let alone soldier in, and then have the pressures of selection on top of that. And so you really are on your limit every single day. And what they're looking at is, again, is that performance piece. Are you still able to perform essentially soldiering skills under that extreme pressure? Because it is so difficult and such a hard environment, everyone makes mistakes. Like everyone has a bad day.

26:25You know, I remember we had a day where our patrol was due to go meet our DS directing staff for that day for whatever the activity was. we were already kind of pushed for time. We had to stop and fill up our water bottles. So there was this small river, large stream. The rest of the patrol, apart from myself and one other, they crossed this fallen log to get to the other side. And they were waiting there. We were filling up the water bottles. And as I was coming back up the bank, I slipped and dropped one of them. And our patrol commander told me afterwards, he turned to the lads at that point and said, oh, Jeff is having a bad day.

27:00He's probably going to fucking fall off the log next. funny old thing as i was crossing that fallen log i did i slipped and i fell like three or four feet into all of the mud next to that next that stream so my kit my rifle everything was just plastered in mud and we got up you know we had to double time make double time to to get to that meeting point with the ds and this ds for that day was just like grizzled you know 20 year sas veteran first thing he said was right everyone stripped down your rifles for inspection and so i just had to present you know at this point you're a trepid i'm a trained royal marine and i'm handing over a rifle that is just caked in mud so you know straight away that's a black mark and what they do they've just got notepads and they're just constantly scribbling things down so they don't say anything to you they just scribble it down so what happens to a lot of people is when things like that happen they make mistakes you know everyone everyone has that they will get in their own heads and they will spiral and catastrophize like i've messed it up i fucked it you know there's no point carrying on and they essentially talk themselves out of carrying on and they quit because they're like well what is the point in continuing to put myself through this hell if i've already failed because i've made this mistake and then what happens is they go to their you know the interview before they leave and they're basically told they were doing pretty well and if they'd stuck with it they would have passed and so for me in those moments and i use now there's a kind of phrase by Jocko Willink, which is good.

28:29Now what? Okay, good. This has happened. What am I going to do with this? And so it's like, okay, I messed up. Fine. What now? Well, what I need to do is just focus on the next thing and make sure that I do well at that. So the ability to take control of those negative thoughts and emotions, not let them spiral into self-doubt and catastrophization and bring your focus back on what do I need to do in this moment is a skill and it's such a powerful one because business that happens all the time the amount of times your back is against the wall that things go wrong with your product with clients with deals like constant problem solving if you're i heard someone say if you're not able to play with the pain you can't play the game about business and i think it's so true because it really is the hard times that define your journey well it's easy everyone can do it by default it's when things are going wrong and how you deal with that that's what's going to define your journey so just taking that example you know we build into the training that ability to when and it's a very simple one for anyone like as soon as you start to feel that negative thought or emotion coming up just stop like step back first of all just take a breath so what we're doing there is really trying to calm the nervous system down tap into that parasympathetic system so a couple of thought is it's all going to go wrong I've messed it up okay what's the truth the truth is I've just made a mistake I'm human every does everyone does that as long as I learn from it and I take the next right action okay I'll get past with it I'll deal with it so our self-talk what we say to ourselves has a huge impact on how we perform it's why elite athletes train this so consistently every time you do that you are changing your default so what's important here and this is probably the key point in mindset you can't just do this now and again what happens is people get stressed they face hardship and like i wish i was more resilient i wish i was more confident the only way you have that is if you train this consistently and every day we have an opportunity so from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed your commute to work time with your family how you are in the work day you're saying things to yourself mistakes things are going to come up there'll be situations that trigger you if if every time or as many times as you can you consciously catch that step back and start to reframe things the more you do it the more it'll be your default and you'll be able to call upon it when it really gets hard and the pressure ramps up so it's this constant training process of like i just have a playbook of phrases so i have a playbook of self-talk like go to things for different situations and my default now is that's where I'll go to but it just takes time to train it yeah it's interesting chatting to my running club last night we're doing a 10k on the on the beach and I was chatting to this this this lad he was a doctor actually but he uh he was he's got the marathon disabler coming up in I think it's April I think he was saying and he was just asking me about my podcast and I was telling him a little bit about it and he was like but surely you're just interviewing those people have been successful then I see you know he said those are those are certain lessons but everyone's been successful and I was like yeah but when you actually talk to someone for 40 minutes to an hour you actually realize to get to that point of success they've they've overcome failure that I said there's there might be in the you know six seven eight hundred people I've spoken to that a couple of them it's their first rodeo but it's so rare you know we were talking about Lush I've interviewed like Rowena one of the one of the five co-founders a number of times now and their first business failed right you know they they literally had a they still used the office in poor high street uh that they had 30 years ago um and it's now 1.1 billion pound business but that first business they had cosmetics to go they literally had a the radiator leak over the weekend and ruin all the stock that was in the room underneath and it's out of your control you know but ultimately you know they made the decision to go again even though you know it cost them a shitload of money and all the rest of it and I was trying to explain to the guy who's just about to obviously discover a lot about himself in a couple of months having never done anything like this before but I was saying so many people that I speak to it's not their first rodeo they've overcome failure and quite a lot of people it's it's the third fourth the fifth thing right that actually is is the thing that works for them it is the journey like whether you see success or failure as two separate paths or one path that in itself makes a huge difference and essentially it's growth or fixed mindset so if we see failure as something that is a direct reflection of our self-worth and really bad and to be always avoided then you're going to hold back from opportunities when it does happen you're going to beat yourself up and go down these negative spirals take you a long time to recover or if you see it as it is just they're one in the same they are part of the process it's going to happen all that matters is how I deal with it and what I do next the difference that makes to how you show up in in any arena is massive but again it's a mindset that we can train and part of that whether it's harder or easier is part of it is upbringing so with growth or fixed mindset so for example if you were always told you were very clever very talented you're very good at this what's happening there is you're linking the result to your self-worth and so if you if that's not happened so one you want to avoid things that potentially mean you're going to go it's going to go wrong because you're like well that's going to be a poor reflection of who i am as opposed to the growth mindset if you've been praised for and i was very lucky we were always told as kids like as long as you try your best it's the effort that you put in that matters and so linking effort to where the satisfaction and and where the the the real results lie as opposed to the actual result means that you on the the result your self-worth is not dependent on the result it's how you're actually showing up within that and when you switch to that it's much easier to cope with mistakes going wrong on that journey because you just see it as part of it it's not reflection of you it's a reflection of your ability at that moment which you can change it's just a skill it's like okay well i just need to approve at my marketing or my sales calls which I can do it just takes practice and then I'm going to get the result that I want yeah and always reminded that's reminded me of um you know reading one of uh David Goggins's books and he talks about you know having having the cookie jar and pulling out you know a cookie you know which is a memory of going through a tough time and it's like well if you've never gone through any tough times and you you hit a tough time for the first time how do you actually cope with that um whereas and it reminded me you know when I when I was doing um I think it was the second marathon I did I did New York marathon and I was totally unprepared for for the heat it was like a heat wave in November um but I've done a marathon myself during during lockdown here down in pool and it's like pulling those memories that enable you to get through when you've got you know for me it was like the good devil and the bad devil one you know the angel and the devil on each shoulder both having a conversation with you at the same time and you know those inner voices trying to ignore them but trying to really pull on past experience that had gotten me through, you know, a difficult time.

35:43And it's, you know, it comes back to the whole, you know, point of this podcast, you know, screw it, just do it. People actually taking the leap and deciding to do something, even though it might scare them and they know it might be hard, right? I would, do you know what I'd say? I would say there's two things with that. So past experience is really, really valid because it allows us to build competence in certain arenas. that's how military training is structured. You go through easy scenarios to learn skills, let's say combat skills, certain things that you're doing. So you go through easy scenarios and then it gradually gets more complex and they add in noise and live ammunition and smoke and all the rest of it.

36:22And they gradually build that up. So you build competence in easier stages. And then as it gets harder, you're more able to call upon those prior experiences, exactly like you said and that's important in life sometimes though there are things like i've never started a business before it is going to be my first time i don't have that prior experience this is where that the more you train yourself the more unknown thing unknown and uncertainty you can step in to even if you don't have that experience so for your example there you know if we take that i did i wouldn't even say we don't want to ignore those voices what we actually want is to acknowledge the voices I'm like okay what am I saying myself to in this moment okay well the devil is that this is right now I feel fucked I want to stop okay right take control of that maybe you know one for me is let's just boil it down for okay well I'm just going to focus on the next one minute get through the next one minute and then I'll reassess right one minute later reassess because you marathon's a great example within that marathon you will have had there are going to be times actually I'm feeling pretty good and then suddenly five minutes later like oh my god this is awful I don't know if I can make it.

37:27And so if you just know, it's like, okay, this will pass. What mental tactics can I use to, we do it in the military all the time. It's like, all I need to do is just focus on the next one minute, two minutes, get through that. Maybe it's just an acceptance of the feeling. You know, a lot of the time we try to fight hardship. Sometimes we need to be firm with ourselves. Sometimes it's right. Get a grip, crack on, keep your head up. Next step. Sometimes like, yeah, this is fucking hard. I do feel fucked. Okay. That's fine. It will pass. I can sit with this and it's a bit more understanding with yourself again it's the the more you understand yourself the more you understand what that nose narratives are and ways to counter it in the moment and what works for you in specific situations totally changes your performance like that that when i say there is no secret the secret is essentially training these things that is how athletes show up and do what they do this is how the military do what they do it's not a magic pill that you take it's a result of a structured training process most people just don't understand how to do that and i think that's the core point and something you said earlier there's so much information out there and i think particularly with what we're talking about here in the performance realm you know physically you can go to a pt and they will tell you exactly what to do to get that result and it's probably actually maybe it isn't a clearer path whereas with mindset and performance we've got podcasts over here and books we've got therapy and counseling over here we've got a whole array of capital and people don't know how to tie this together to essentially train this on a regular basis and to be that's taken me 10 years of being in this arena really studying it day in and day out to pull that together but i think that's what we're missing is a very clear practical path of how we actually tie these things together agreed agreed um and again if we're talking to the audience here um and somebody's feeling stuck if they're feeling overwhelmed it's end of year beginning of year you know when this when this episode comes out or they feel like that maybe they're treading water right what first couple of actions do you think they should be thinking about taking like in especially like dawn of a new era right you know a new year everyone's feeling a little bit of hope but then maybe there's that you know straight back into work mode and again they're straight away feeling like they're not going anywhere totally overwhelmed again i feel stuck what would your advice be there simon i would say a very simple create like three columns just a simple sheet or document and have three columns and having the first one your state so your body and the second one would have your mind and mindset and the third one have your structures and routines they can even i mean this is amazing about ai and chat gpt like even just ask it it's like okay what are the top 10 things that really influence my nervous system and my state and it will be you know it'll be sleep it will be hydration it will be screen time all of these things in the mindset side you put in it's like i you know i struggle with maybe it's procrastination or perfectionism again what are the sort of top five to ten things that i could do to to change change that mindset wise and then the third one structures and routines you know what are the big things that really help people structure the day in ways that they feel in control and not reactive and so you kind of have these three lists do not try and do that all at once just week by it's like okay right now for this next week i'm going to pick one from each of these and i'm just going to focus on that maybe you then stay on one of those things for two weeks okay that's fine and just gradually start to make small changes and i would say if one thing to take away is that is absolutely key the shortcut is slow small changes because what most people do particularly new year is i need to change everything i'm going to radically change my diet i'm going to train five times a week i'm going to read all these but whatever it is yeah yeah and like two or three weeks in everything just rebounds and you throw it all off and it's this cycle yeah so i always give the best fitness app out there one of the most successful is couch to 5k the reason it's so successful is because it changes your behaviors before it worries about performance and everyone in life does the opposite they just want to jump to the performance it gets this identity piece again what couch to 5k does is build the behavior of showing up so you know the first few weeks you literally just have to walk five minutes and then the slope it's very small easy steps which means you're you're likely to do it you're consistent with it that starts to change your behavior around it.

42:02And then it gradually increases until you're performing at that level. Same with everything in life. Moving average is the concept that I apply to everything. So you don't need perfection. All you need is a positive moving average. And tied in with that is slow, small steps are the way to build that moving average. So that's what a very simple start is build those three columns and then just gradually change one thing at a time. Because if you try to do too much, it will become overwhelming and you will just rebound. Yeah. And I suppose also you don't know when you kind of look back at the changes you made.

42:40You don't know what made the biggest change if you try and chuck six different habits in there in 1st of January, right? Yeah, exactly. You mentioned AI there. so with AI with the acceleration in tech that we've had and the constant disruption we get in the modern life how do you think leaders should think about discipline and performance today I think leaders I think you know we talk about training mindset most people don't train leadership so how I'm almost separate I'm not sure how AI turns into it do you know what I would say is yes sir we've got this tech and it's really going to help with things if you don't have the basics in place all of that is is null and void so what selection special forces test more for any more than anything else is the very basics of soldiering selection doesn't test anything that you don't learn in basic training so the things that i learned in basic training as a raw marine are the same things that are tested on selection there is you know there's no john wick kind of crazy tactics it's basic infantry skills that every single infantry soldier in the british army is trained in what it does is put you in an environment where there's incredible pressure and it's can you perform those basic skills to a high level under pressure and again look at business the people who are successful are with all the uncertainty and volatility and hardship within business and the challenges they are spot on with their marketing their sales their branding basics of business that haven't changed for hundreds of years and it's no different now so we can obviously bring in ai to help with that but it's still the basics leadership's no different you know very simple example is feedback so within the military and particularly special forces feedback is baked into into life it could be a 30 minute training evolution or a two-week operation at every every time you do anything there's an open after action review so within that debrief ranks removed it doesn't matter if you're the most senior or the the most junior, everyone has a voice.

44:45People are not chewed out for who they are. It's what they did. So it's that separation of you as a person versus these are the skills. This is the behavior or the skill that there was a shortfall. This is what we need to do to improve. Whereas we look at most corporate culture, feedback is an appraisal once every few weeks or once every three months. It's made into, it becomes a big thing just because it's so infrequent. And so that makes it emotional and people take it personal whereas and again sports teams are good at this as well if it's just baked if it just is normal it's just this is what we do as a company there's constant feedback every week after everything the difference that makes with one people feel heard they feel like they've got a voice everyone knows what's happening there's very clear direction very simple change but even that most most leadership are not doing it with their teams and so the what i would say is the basics like are you doing the basics as a leader that is because that's what's going to transform like your team and performance and everything else and ai could just be a i think ai just will just accentuate that it helps with it but if you don't have the foundation you're still going to fail yeah yeah agreed um just coming to the the end of our time now i just wanted to go so you you've been in business uh like a decade yourself now what's um some of the hardest lessons that you've learned that is a good question it's a really hard the way again maybe so for john and i always frame it whenever the amount of mistakes we've made and and look back on you know i'll give one example is it took us a long time to really understand what our message was and be really clear with that and who we work with and that's just if we if we'd figured that out four years ago we'd been a totally different place i'd say only now we really starting to understand that but then the flip side of it is also we always say you can't skip the process you don't know what you don't know we almost had to go through it's like Steve Jobs you can only join the dots backwards we almost had to go through that making those mistakes to get to where we are now so I think the one big lesson is that I will say is when you're so caught up in the weeds of the day-to-day it's very easy to get lost in the noise and be spending time on things you shouldn't I heard someone talk about a good sort of mental kind of practice to help with this is and they said imagine if someone came into your business and replaced your role as CEO or whatever founder whatever it is and actually they were pretty shit in a lot of respects you know they turned up late they were taking loads of breaks they just weren't that great but in six to 12 months they doubled your business or they got it to the place that you're trying to get to what are the one to three things that they would have had to have done even if all this other stuff was pretty shit to enable that to happen and so it forces you to really think about like what are the key drivers you know for us for example recently we've just realized that the answer isn't some new fancy headline or changing that it's like we just need more leads and be consistent across the board in lots of different places with this message that's it bring in more leads and be better with our conversion message if we just did those two things it will change that that is that is all we need to do and so it stops you getting sucked into the noise yeah yeah that is super simple um and again this episode coming out right at the beginning of the year which i think is a really good episode to have with a message that uh that you're bringing um for you um and your business if we met up in 12 months time what would you like to have achieved in the next 12 months we would like to have achieved so we have a kind of membership side to the business where we do a lot more and we're going to do a lot more in-person events and bringing speakers in because I think in the world where we are now having that in-person connection is just so needed and so invaluable so the so if it's to double that side of the business if i was to say one thing it's like i want double the amount of people coming along to our meetups getting together having those experiences um yeah that would be the aim it's a good one i was chatting to um someone's become a very good friend of mine over the years piz linney former dragon's den investor used to be you know used to be a lawyer or banker etc and now he's got an ai business and i was chatting to Piers he's one of the speakers at this event festival of entrepreneurs we did back in October at the NEC and and he was like you know everybody's moving towards AI but he goes I love what you're doing starting an events business because it's it's that bringing people together and it's exactly what you said it's that connection it's connecting people because we've got you know social media is not social right and we've gotten so far away from that and the feedback we had you know from just putting on that one event was just the most overwhelmingly positive feedback i've i've had i've been doing events since like 2016 with virgin startup and it was like okay well it's pretty simple really the premise of putting on an event right but you still gotta you still gotta nail it and get it right and like you say you've got you've got to find the right people and have the right messaging to to get the right people there and get those people to connect with each other so you know i love that idea as well of when everybody's zigging zag instead because that that's where the trend is going right i i love it i think um what you're doing with that and in this world it's never been more needed in-person connection community like that aspect because i think as well businesses business can be really lonely i'm i'm so lucky that across this journey there's been two of us that have been able to share that because honestly in the hard times just having someone to just share the like just share the load basically makes a huge difference I always, sometimes people do message and say they're thinking of starting something and just any advice.

50:43And one of the things I say is if it's just you, join an entrepreneur community or something where you're just a, because if you've not done it, people just don't get it. I think people think they do, but really until you've actually done your own thing, you just don't know. You just don't understand quite what it feels like. And so just being around people or being able to just talk to people that have done it really does help. No, massively. And I've been a solo founder, I think, three or four times until this event business. And it makes such a difference. I mean, a co-founder or a couple of co-founders in this case and people who've been there and done it.

51:23Right. We've got Sir Liam Fox, you know, former defense secretary as one of our four co-founders of the business. And he was like his advice. We were like, yeah, let's go do London in four months. And he was just like, can I just say one thing? Don't run before you can walk. Let's just scale this nice and slowly. Let it grow organically. And then we can put some rocket fuel behind it. And I was like, okay, yes, I'm going to listen to you. This isn't your first radio, right? You know, so you're right. You know, if you're going into a business and you are the founder and you don't have a choice as a solo founder, you need to get out from behind your computer and meet other people.

52:05Yes, you can still do online meets, but there's something to be said for actually, you know, shaking hands or getting a hug from somebody and sharing some of the war wounds that you're going through. Yeah, I'm fully on board with that. Fully agree. A couple of quick fire questions just to finish off, Simon. First thing that comes into your head. First one is, what is an entrepreneur for you? Someone following their own path, building their own thing and able to... Basically, you walk in a hard path. You walk in your own path and a hard path. There's a reason people don't do it because it is hard.

52:41but the rewards of that are equal to equal to that hardship um what is a scale-up business for you what constitutes a scale-up business i would say it's that point where again you have that solid foundation so i'll use this as an example i feel like it's taken us a long we're only just coming out of startup mode which is like eight years in so again we talk about god i wish we'd done this earlier but it only feels like now we really understand the messaging we have the team in place and we know exactly we have exact clarity on what we need to do we just need to do it and if we do it then we are going to scale up so i think it's when you have the real foundation of your team process system whatever that looks like and you really understand what it is you're trying to achieve and the steps to achieve that yeah no that's really good really good answer um any thoughts on other than the size of the country why do you think a country like the us is able to um um ultimately have you know way more um scale-ups way more unicorn businesses than the UK is it mindset for example the difference between American mindset and the UK uh yeah that's a really interesting question I would so I think you can't ignore things like the you know resources and size of it but actually I would agree like I think there is a difference in mind mindset and I actually see that in coaching if I have calls with people in the states that are interested in coaching versus the uk in the states coaching is already a thing like they understand that paying to shortcut the process i.e for someone's leverage and knowledge experience is a no-brainer they're just like they're already bought into it and so they already have the mindset to improve it's like well why wouldn't i and john and i have had the same we've hired business coaches since day one we're like we don't know that why would we not shortcut the process i still use like a p i've been training for 20 years i'll still use a pt now and again because guess what i don't study biomechanics physiology exercise science day in and day out so if i am like oh i really want to improve something on my squat i'm like i'm just going to pay someone for their knowledge that they've spent 20 years doing that so i don't have to do that so i think there is and maybe that does go into sort of the mindset of starting a business or i think there's maybe there's a bit more of that American dream, they are sold the follow your own path, like carve your own path, go out, make your millions, you know, the whole American dream.

55:08And that is, I think it is a bit more baked into the culture as opposed to just put your head down, get your job, stay in that. That is more British, doesn't it? Yes. It does, it does. I want to chuck in an extra question actually I just thought of as well, which I think is, I'd be keen to get your take on. Why do you think discipline is more important than talent? just to finish up on so because it's controllable um so i heard this described once i think it was in a book imagine you've got two bags and one's your innate talent and then one's your um performance discipline effort whatever you want to term it as you know that first bag it's whatever you're born with like that's you know you dealt with the cars that you get and we've all got different strengths and weaknesses though that's it so you pick your number but that other bag is is totally up to you so it's it's what's controllable for each of us and actually the way it's described like to be elite elite you are there's no question about it you're like an elon musk you can do you could you could nail everything there's still very few people on the planet who are going to achieve what someone like he has or jeff bezos like this is ridiculous or you know in sport it's like um god this shows my age i was going to say limford christy um as opposed to uh usain bolt but you know the extremes of kind of talent however pretty you know for all of us we can get to really high levels in anything that you set your mind to if you put the required effort energy time focus into it um and so that's why i think it's it's more important like we i think for nearly everyone you can get to beyond what you think is capable it's just understanding how to do it and it's putting that effort into that side of things perfect um and look for people who've um listened and watched this episode um interested in chatting to yourself finding out more about the natural edge um where should people go uh the easiest thing so it's the natural edge on instagram simon jeffrey's on linkedin or the website thenaturaledge.com um and there's a very simple So in terms of the frameworks, I've got something called the Chaos Drill, which is the free download, which will straight away give you some very simple tactics to put in place to feel more in control.

57:33Perfect. OK, amazing. Well, thank you for your time, Simon. Thanks for appearing on Scrooge. Thank you very much. Pleasure. If this conversation resonated with you, don't just sit there, act on it. Make sure you follow or subscribe for more game-changing conversations. And remember, the only thing standing between you and your business breakthrough is the decision to screw it and just do it.