Midlife Crisis or Awakening? How to Find Purpose & Meaning Beyond Success

Episode Title: Vulnerability, Habits, and Finding Purpose with Stefan Hines

In this week’s episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, I sit down with Stefan Hines, a former British Army veteran turned business and life coach, to discuss how embracing vulnerability can be a powerful strength—especially in leadership and personal growth.

We explore the difference between vulnerability and weakness, and why being open about our struggles actually makes us stronger. Stefan shares his life audit exercise, a practical tool to help you reflect on your life and identify what truly brings you joy and purpose. He also introduces the Hero’s Journey method, a unique way to reframe your past experiences and intentionally design the next phase of your life.

If you’ve ever struggled with self-doubt, this episode will help you shift your mindset. Instead of seeing doubt as a weakness, you’ll learn how to turn it into an opportunity for growth. We also talk about habit formation—why visualizing your future self can be the key to making lasting changes and breaking free from limiting patterns.

Additionally, we dive into daily mindset practices for improving mental well-being, managing stress, and aligning your actions with your purpose. From the power of breathwork to focusing only on what you can control and influence, Stefan shares powerful strategies to help you gain clarity and confidence in your journey.

🔹 What You’ll Learn:
✔ Why vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness
✔ The Life Audit Exercise for self-reflection
✔ How to reframe self-doubt into a growth opportunity
✔ The power of habit formation & future self-visualization
✔ Practical daily mindset strategies for resilience

🎧 Tune in now and start embracing your authentic self!

Introduction: 5-Day Journey to Lower Stress & Improve Performance

Introduction: 5-Day Journey to Lower Stress & Improve Performance

About Stephen:

Stephen Hinds MBA, a leader, mentor, and visionary who has dedicated his life to service, transformation, and legacy building.

With 29 years of service in the British Army and a decade of mentoring 8-figure founders, executives, and industry icons, Stephen has mastered the art of leadership, resilience, and strategic growth. But beyond the titles and accolades, his mission is simple: helping high achievers transition from success to significance.

Many of us build careers, achieve financial milestones, and earn respect, only to find ourselves wondering, What now? 
Stephen understands this better than most. Through his company, "Beyond Training International" he guides leaders who feel stuck despite their success, helping them rediscover purpose, rewire their mindset, and craft a future that aligns with their values.

However, his impact goes beyond business. As the Managing Trustee of Rila’s Dream UK, Stephen is also deeply committed to the rescue and rehabilitation of Bulgarian street dogs, a testament to his servant leadership and dedication to making a difference.

ECI is about connections that elevate and empower, and Stephen embodies that spirit fully. Please make him feel at home!

Connect with Stephen on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenhindscoaching/

Transcript

0:00

This week's episode, we talk about why vulnerability is a strength rather than a weakness, particularly in leadership and personal growth. We look at the power of building great habits and how this can be strengthened with a future self visualization. How self doubt can be a growth opportunity if approached with awareness and the right mindset. And we talk about daily practices for mindset and wellbeing. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James : 1:05

Today I have my special guest, Stefan. How you doing, Stefan?

Stephen Hinds: 1:10

Very well, thanks, James. Thanks for having me.

James : 1:13

So, to start off, just tell us about yourself. Can you tell us a bit about yourself, please?

Stephen Hinds: 1:18

Sure. I'm Steph Steven. I'm 58 years old, Scottish, in case you can't tell, but I live in Germany. I spent 29 years in the British Army traveled all over the world, served in Afghanistan, Iraq, things like that. Married a German lady, and when I retired from the army we decided to stay here in Germany. So I'm actually bi bilingual and also binational, so I have a German passport as well. Thank you, Boris. Thank you, Brexit. So I, I now work as a coach through Primarily as a business coach, I started as a language coach, business and language, and then I moved into business coaching. I've worked with corporations but my, I'll give you an example of how I transitioned from being a classic business coach into being a kind of life coach for business executives. Was I could help them with their business strategy, but my, my passion came alive when they started to tell me things that were going on in their personal life with relationships, with their children, with limiting beliefs that they were having, that kind of thing. And because it resonated with my story, when I left the army, Joined the army at 16, left at 45, suddenly realized that my entire identity was built around my career. Because I was living, eating and breathing that role. And I went from high profile, high tempo position in Afghanistan, came home and immediately retired. And then sat at home on my own, without responsibility, without direction, without just every part of my life had been changed all in one fell swoop. And that caused me to essentially have a breakdown. And this is a very abridged version of the story. But, you know, it was in my recovery from that, that caused me to reflect in on my own journey. And it was at 45, so the classic midlife moment, shall we say. And so I kind of dug myself out of that hole, and it was in digging out of that, my role in the military had always been as an instructor, leadership development, human resources side of things as well. So I kind of cobbled all these life skills, qualifications, and my newfound passion together, and now I essentially help people who have reached a point in their career where they're traditionally financially financially secure, professionally successful, but they're also hitting that kind of mid forties life period where the kids, you know, everything's been about getting called, getting a good job, getting a house, getting the family. And suddenly the kids are off in Bali, setting up a SAS company or something. And they still finding themselves in there. You've just turned 40 yourself. And the finding that actually, I remember joining the army at 16 and they talked about pensions at 40. And I was like, no one's that old. I'll never live to that age. Well, so I completely understand that people are getting to this point in life and realizing there's a whole load of living left to do, and maybe they haven't got the skills, the network, the, the, the background experience. to see what a life beyond traditional success looks like. So I kind of coach them, help them to go towards purpose, beyond success to purpose, to fulfillment, creating a legacy, that, that kind of thing. So that's my, that's my, I've lived that journey and I've managed to cobble it into a profession. That makes sense.

James : 4:54

Makes complete sense. I was doing, I did a post the other day about how generally after 30 and onwards, start to realize that you've probably been following a lot of what society's taught you. So things like status, money, how we should live, and then you suddenly hit mid thirties, early forties, late forties, and then you realize that What you thought you wanted. isn't actually what you truly want, and what you truly want is something completely different.

Stephen Hinds: 5:34

Let me modify that because I've got 18 years. Of more time on the planet because you're not wrong, you're not 100 percent right, because it's important that we understand that all those things that we did from our 20s and 30s and into our 40s, they were the right thing to do at the right time, you know, but what happens is we're allowed to evolve. You know, so there's a, there's a thing, I think it's Daniel Levison, he writes a book about the different ages of man, meaning species, man, where, you know, we have, we have certain urges when we're, when we're younger, it's about partying and sports and hanging out with guys, then hanging out with girls and all that kind of thing. And we, we evolved through that process. So that we, we commit to, yes, you're absolutely right, what societal norms say, what our parents say, you know, and even, even the culture when, when I was going through that lifestyle in the 80s. You know, it was nailed on because everything that we could see was my father was in the same industry for 40 years, and he was normal. That's what all of his friends did. You know, so we could only reflect on what they were living. But the transformation in this, the, the the acceleration of changes in technology and awareness, the Internet has given us knowledge about the rest of the world. So the reason I make a big point of this is. We didn't fuck it up. Excuse my French. Yeah. We did what was the right thing then. But now what I'm doing is I'm saying to people, you have permission to find something else. You know, that was okay. You got loads of skills there. Maybe you made other people rich in that time. But no, it's all key for you to consider doing something else, doing something different. It's not that if this is right, that must be wrong. That was right at that time. Well, no, this is right at this time. Does that make sense? That little distinction?

James : 7:46

so it's more like the, our teens, twenties, maybe early thirties, we're exploring who we are, but we're kind of, we're partly programmed by society, but we're also exploring our own, our own body, our own fun, and then we get to the point into our late 30s, early 40s, we start to understand, I suppose it's, you start to understand who we truly are. to connect to ourselves on a deeper, on a different level than in our 20s.

Stephen Hinds: 8:22

Absolutely. And this is what happens. The, you must've heard the phrase. We we have two lives and the second life begins when we realize we have only one. And this is a profound moment that we tend to come to around this area era in our life. And everyone gets to this point. And my, my, my advice is, the sooner you can get there, the better because it encourages this kind of insight and reflection, because in those early days, it's, it's from a survival perspective. It's very important that we don't stick out. Literally, if you think about it in caveman days. If you're twice as tall as everyone else around you, the saber toothed tiger is going to go, Oh, he looks tasty. We'll have some of that. You see what I mean? So fitting in, fitting in is evolutionarily, if that's a word, required. So we, we do everything. We want to have the same hairstyle, the same clothes. We want to behave in the same way. So we have these stereotypes that we try to model. And what happens, and incidentally, that's where most of our chronic stress, anxiety, depression bad habits comes from, because we have this external version of ourself, but inside we've always got this authentic, original version of ourselves. And the further apart those two personas are, this is where all the stress lies in this delta here. But as life goes on, We, we lose both through evolutionary, but just through the pain and struggle. And we just think, I'm done with this. I'm bored with trying to be like everyone else. I don't want to be that guy. And we, the closer and closer we come to our authentic selves. This is why as a demographic, people in their fifties and sixties, notwithstanding illness and bereavement and everything, they're the happiest demographic on the planet because they, they finally realized. That no one cares what they wear, what they say, what they do, and we become more comfortable in our own skin and more inclined to say, I'm not interested in other people's opinions. And it truly is a liberating experience. So it's the best time to be alive over 40.

James : 10:43

people, for the people listening, how can we step more into our most authentic self?

Stephen Hinds: 10:50

Right. So I, I, I run people through my, my clients start with what I call a life audit, right? There's two, two main phases to this, but stage one is life audit. And that's where we just sit down and it can be as simple as a piece of paper or open up a spreadsheet and you can, you can do it on a specific thing like my job, you can do it on your relationship. Be careful where you do this. Careful where you leave these notes lying around. Yeah, right? It's an intensely personal thing. So you really need to gather because you have to be 110 percent honest with yourself. So, and then you just say, right, let's say I'm talking about my job. Lying down the centre. What things in my job do I look forward to? What gives me joy? What boosts my energy? And that could be working in a team challenges, learning new things, can be whatever it is, responsibility. And then on the other side, what steals my joy? What takes my energy? You know, filling in countless forms, meeting after meeting, travel, travel, business travel could go on either side of the list. It depends on which one, which one's you. Some guys quite like to get away for a week to, on a business trip. However, my point is you just write this stuff down. That in itself can be incredibly enlightening and cathartic. And then you get to look at your job. Not in an emotional way, just in facts and figures. You can almost give each point score. And then by looking at this, you can very quickly see if most of your stuff's on the side of Griffin with joy, no, no jobs or any circumstances ever going to have. all on one side. But you look at those two lists and you go, is that really worth that? And very quickly you can get a kind of graphical or pictorial representation of where you're at. And it's very rare that that doesn't align with What you're feeling anyway, whether consciously, or if you're feeling, if you're feeling pissed off or stressed or just generally grumpy or unhappy, this list will probably align with, well that makes sense, doesn't it? I've got five things there, 25 things on that side. That can then be the catalyst to say, I need to make a change. So that's what I call the life audit format. Where am I at right now? What's going on in my life? Yeah, so that's step number one, just to get clarity. Then once they go, okay, I want to do something about this. Say, all right, then here we go. And the next thing we call is that these are, these are my own names too. We'll call it the hero's journey. So let's take yourself as an example, James, you're 40 years old. You split your life. To this point down into five chapters, 0 to 8, 8 to 16, 16 to 24. And again, this, this isn't done immediately. You go away and you make some notes and maybe take you a few days or a week to, to complete this exercise. So you write the things in each chapter that, as you can remember, it doesn't have to be accurate, whether you are seven or nine, but it puts it in the right ballpark. And you write the things that you remember that were good, the things that were bad, the things that you, you're glad you did, the things that you wish you did but didn't. Things that you did but wish you didn't, you know, these kind of things and you do it again and again for each Chapter of your life to this point and then again you do an audit of that information and you have a look and say well Quite like that. This this is very important when we come to this second life thing is I really loved that between 8 and 16, you know, I love playing soccer, I love playing trombone in the band or something like that, that could be crucial in this next phase, you know, but you take all the learnings from that experience. And then you sit down, and either on your own or with someone like me, is we sit down and we say, right, which bits of Chapter 1 to 5 do you want to use? Because you're the hero in this journey, and now we're going to script Chapter 6. So what do you want Chapter 6 to look like? You've got all this So let's look to the future. Let's plan your future so that you're, you've got a direction to aim for, because once you know which direction you're going in, guess what? You've got a much higher likelihood of getting there.

James : 15:30

That's, that's part of the, the idea. Once you know what you want you have a direction, suddenly life, I think life becomes, as for me, life for me has become easier, because all then, then I have to put a plan together, and execute the plan, slowly, step by step, bit by bit, I slowly step into who I'm becoming.

Stephen Hinds: 15:57

Now, you are, shall we say, one of the enlightened ones. So you've already, you already understand this on, on some level, but there's many, many men and women all across all genders who are in your space right now, who haven't got the, the the access to perhaps this kind of level of reflection and in depth, but, but that doesn't mean they won't feel it. They will feel it emotionally. They will feel it in forms of stress. Poor sleep, poor diet, you know tension in relationships and all that kind of thing. And when you don't have a direction, it also triggers not having a sense of control. So that can trigger anxiety just on its own, having lack of control. So you having a plan, there's nothing to say two things. There's nothing to say you will achieve it. And there's nothing to say that in three years time you won't say, actually. I want to go this way. So there's no rules to this, but it is clear. It is important that you have a clarity and you have a purpose to aim at. Yeah. Because you said it makes life feel easier. I would modify that and say it makes doing this, the hard stuff easier because you understand, yeah, this is pretty tough today. I'm going to the gym today. I hate the gym, but Hey, if I want to go hiking in the Himalayas when I'm 55, I need to look after my body. Now it becomes easier to go to the gym. But if I tell you, you just go to the gym, why? Well, because I told you to. How much harder is that to motivate yourself to go to the gym? You see what I mean? So that's the, that's the purpose. Doesn't make things easy, it makes hard things easier to endure.

James : 17:48

Yeah, I can, I can see that because at the moment I've had back issues probably for the last three or four years

Stephen Hinds: 17:56

Mm hmm.

James : 17:57

for the first time I've had a lady which tell me the reason I got a back pain is because my feet are splaying out, I've got a pronated foot so my foot dips down, my shoulders are slightly to one side, so this gives me, it gives me a idea of what I need to change. In order to make myself more balanced so that I don't have that same back pain for the next 30, 40 years. Touch wood if I live that long.

Stephen Hinds: 18:28

Yeah, so you've got an external expert to come in and look at you. Yeah. Cause here's the other thing, right? Youth. I'm full of cliches. Me, right? Youth is wasted on the young, right? So when you had no idea how important it was and you had no idea what you were capable of, you were gifted with this. young, energetic, elastic body of yours that you could fill full of pizza and lager and, you know, deprive of sleep and you could do all of these things to it and it would just suck it up and it gives us, gives us this feeling of immortality and invincibility. Well, that's another part of this realization. Generally, you learn it when you get, when you go out on a Friday night and get drunk and it takes you till Tuesday to get over the hangover. You know? There's a, there's a balance where you realize that that fun that I had on Friday night isn't worth the Saturday, Sunday, Monday horrible feeling. So these, these are all part of these slow changes and it's important that people understand that they're not different, they're not broken, they're not weak. It's just ages of man that people go through. And I, I loved my youth. I loved being who I was then. I loved being in the army. I loved going skiing. I loved my beer. I loved chatting up the girls. And I'm happy with that, but I don't regret that it's over. Because I love not drinking beer. I love being with the one woman who's my soulmate. You know, I love going for walks with my dogs. You know, so I, I love my life today as much as I love my life then, you see, it's important that we understand we move through these ages and it's perfectly normal. It doesn't mean that your best days are behind you. It's actually, I, I would argue it's the other way around. If you keep yourself mind and body fit. You can have just as much fun in your 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond because you've got the wisdom. Get the wisdom, you've generally got the disposable income, you've got new technologies. So life ain't over after 40. Trust me on this.

James : 20:40

I can kind of falch because I dance. One thing I love to do is dancing and see me in a dance floor, I dance like nobody's watching. I'm one of them. As soon as I get into dance floor and music hits, I'm just, I just go, I'm like a racehorse I have that much energy and it's just because dancing's one thing I have found over the last three years that I just love to do, and that's the key. It's finding what you love to do. And that's, that again, finding what you love to do, that's a, that's a journey of exploring different things as well. But once you do, will, you will move your day around. You will, you will, you will go to these events rather than go to see family. Because you know, these things bring you joy.

Stephen Hinds: 21:31

Good words, let's put a pin in that, bring you joy, to give you a feeling of elation. Yeah, they're releasing endorphins and all this. Now, you, you lead me on to a point, a big, a big thing I make is a difference, a distinction between two words, vulnerability and weakness. Vulnerability is where you are comfortable in your own skin and you don't mind people knowing about it. So for instance, you're, you're actually being vulnerable on the dance floor. You're opening yourself up for criticism from others, right? That's vulnerable. It doesn't mean you're weak. I would argue it's a strength. It's a character strength to be so comfortable enough for you to go on that dance floor and behave like an idiot. And not care, see what I mean? Or be perceived by other people to be behaving like an idiot because of those societal norms and these, these boundaries we put on ourselves. And I would transpose that in my business coaching world into a leader or a CEO or something. Going into a meeting and being comfortable not being the smartest guy in the room and accepting that you would have to ask for advice from other people. That's some, some leaders, many leaders see that as a weakness, but it's actually an incredibly powerful move to make in terms of building trust, in terms of building credibility, because no one can possibly be all things to all men, you see, so you go into the room and you say, Right, I'm not a specialist in this area. Tell me what you think about this. And you're giving the group permission to speak their mind. But what you've shown them for a human level is yeah. You're not faking it. You're not pretending to be invincible, you know, and I saw it by leaders in the army. I used it myself in the military as well. You lean on your specialists and you call them in and say, right, you're the specialist in this area. What would you advise me to do? I haven't given up control. I haven't given up command. I've asked the specialist for his opinion on something. That's vulnerability in a leadership perspective. But it's not weakness. This is the key. It's strength because those people will respect you so much more, providing you handle it in the right way. You know, you don't say, Oh, hell, I don't know. I don't know. You know, you say you're this, but you're my engineer. This is an engineering task. What is your opinion? And they go, right, sir. I think we should do this. Thank you. See that? No loss of command and control, but I've shown vulnerability and I've accepted that I'm not. the smartest guy in the room. So that's a, that's a power move.

James : 24:27

So so how would you distinguish between a weakness and what was the other word? Sorry.

Stephen Hinds: 24:36

Vulnerability.

James : 24:38

Vulnerability. How would you distinguish between a so for the people out there who are listening now, how would they distinguish between a vulnerability and a weakness?

Stephen Hinds: 24:48

Well, this is the thing. A weakness is something that society or our own perceptions places upon us. You know, like you might, you might be sat at the edge of the dance floor, right? And you see all these people moving, you know, pulling some proper moves, popping shapes or whatever you called it in your day, right? Yeah. And you think, oh, I can't do that. No, you'd love to dance, but you can't dance, right? And, and it's making you unhappy. You've created that as a weakness, right? So to flip that into a vulnerability and a strength. It's for you to say, I'm not as good as them, but I don't care because I'm just going to go and enjoy it, right? So you've got all those people. This, this is a preconception we have. We, we, we assume that we will be judged by others. That's the fear that people have, right? Being judged. The bad news is you will always be judged. Everyone's judging everyone every time. Yeah. It's human nature. We're constantly gauging. Is this guy a friend or foe? Is this a threat and all that kind of stuff. So we're doing it. We can't turn it off. Right? So vulnerability is about saying, well, if they're going to judge me, they can judge me for who I actually am. Right? So you go on the dance floor, right? And you've got all these professionals. And you're strutting about like you've, I don't know, you've got ants in your pants or something like that, right? Weaknesses, a weakness mindset will tell you that you can't enjoy the dancing because they're all laughing at you. But two things are true. If they laugh at you, that shows a weakness in their character, right? But if they step in and help you and give you some advice, so, you know, or they just let you be you and they're happy for you, then that's good character. That's good people, right? So they, they're, they're not judging you. They're, they're accepting you for who you are and those are your tribe. Those are the people you want to hang out with, So that's, that would be a weakness. And if you, if you feel a weakness and you feel anything professionally or personally that you cannot. You cannot express yourself in a way for fear of what other people think, then that's a weakness. Right. A vulnerability is knowing that you're not the best dancer in the room, right? Because then you can do something about that. And there's a fundamental difference here. I'll explain the difference. Vulnerability is knowing you're not the best dancer in the room. That allows you to go to a good dancer and say, I'm not a good dancer. You are. Show me how to dance. That's a power move. You've identified there's a delta in your skills or your abilities. And you're taking steps to address it. Because that good dancer can remember when he couldn't dance, she couldn't dance. And they will willingly help you go there. That's showing vulnerability. Vulnerability is the delta between where I am now and what I want to be. Weakness is when you see that, or you perceive that, you do nothing about it, and it causes you not to be that person. Right? So that's That's my definition of weakness. Weakness is bad. Vulnerability, good.

James : 28:14

so really, you could turn anything a weakness or a vulnerability. So I'll give you an example, for example, you had self doubt. You would naturally see self doubt as probably a weakness because you're doubting yourself too much, then at the same time you could turn self doubt, okay, I might doubt myself in this ability, who can I turn to to get some advice and some help from? Would that be right?

Stephen Hinds: 28:41

Precisely. So self doubt keeps you small. That's a weakness, right? And you do nothing about it. You just accept you're locked. Self doubt as a vulnerability does two things. It keeps you honest. It stops you getting arrogant, but it's a start point for growth. So you accept I'm not as good as we keep going back to dancing, but you know, I would like to talk more about leadership or something in a business context, but we'll stick with dancing because you love it. That's good. Okay. So, you think you take that vulnerability shows great awareness, right? Shows that I know I'm not a good dancer, but it gives you a start point to say, right, what am I going to do about that? So it's a start point for growth. Right. And, and people talk about imposter syndrome and imposter syndrome is a valid experience providing we don't let it take charge because it means that you're stepping up to a different level. So it's, it's a, it's an indicator of growth, providing you manage it. All of these things. need to be managed correctly. They, you know, they can be good for you. They can be bad for you. All depends on how you handle them. So someone who's got no imposter syndrome, beware, right? They're, they're a very dangerous person or a very stupid person. If, if you know, the special forces, military special forces will tell you anybody that doesn't feel fear is a psychopath. You know, because courage is about feeling fear, then doing it. But they don't want to work with people that don't feel fear because those are, you know hand grenades, you know, they're, they're wildcards. That makes sense.

James : 30:29

That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. So self doubt obviously keeps us in negative thinking patterns. kind of strategies can people start to incorporate in order to turn self doubt into a growth experience?

Stephen Hinds: 30:46

Really simple routine to go through. First of all, just pause and ask yourself a simple question is, is what I'm telling myself true? You know, is it true that I'm not a good dancer? I'm not the best dancer. Yeah, that can be true. Is it true that I'll never be able to dance like that? You know, is it true that they're all laughing at me? Really? Are they really laughing at me? Look at them, you know, and you, you you question your, this inner critic, this, cause that, that's what it comes from. It comes to this inner voice. in our head, which is developed, is developed to keep us safe from an evolutionary perspective. Our bodies want us to live, eat, breathe, procreate, nothing else. Your physiology doesn't care whether you have joy, satisfaction, motivation, you know, purpose, fulfillment. Not interested. It's about a survival of the species. So we have all these systems inside us that when you say, Paragliding? That sounds like a riot. You know, every nerve and sinew in your body says, Shut up, you fool. We're not designed to fly. You see what I mean? So we have to overcome those internal systems. Yeah. And sometimes those internal systems get overdeveloped and that's when we either individually or with coaches we can rewire them using neuroplasticity.

James : 32:19

I thought, yeah. So what other things could people do really helps you find of your clients? Makes

Stephen Hinds: 32:26

So well, with my clients, it's great because we can fast track through all of these things. You know, you and I have been chatting now for 35 minutes and I'm dropping all these truth bombs and enlightenment and all that. We can read books, self help books are good. The problem with self help books is they deal on a cognitive intellectual level. I'll give you an example, right? Suppose you're overweight, right? I'm going to write a book. I'm going to say, if you're overweight, don't eat shit, right? Eat vegetables at a reasonable time and do exercise. Boom. There you go. 10 million copies. I'm a best time seller. Everybody reads it and goes. That makes perfect sense. Don't eat shit and exercise. Boom. Why are we all not super lean athletes? Because self help books deal on an intellectual conscious level. Whereas alcohol, poor sleep, poor diet, addictions, they're all happening in our emotional cells. They are tied back to childhood trauma or stories that we are telling ourselves in our own head. So the problem comes when it's ten o'clock at night on a Saturday night and all your mates are at the pub with their girlfriends and you're home alone and it's just you and the fridge and a sponge cake. You tell me what self help book you're going to read that will say that. You see what I mean? So this is where the coaching comes in to go to that deeper level because. Overeating, undereating, alcohol abuse, anything like that are outputs of an emotional need inside the body, and it generally takes a coach to go and do the deep work and understand the inputs to aim off so that you understand why Saturday night in front of the fridge is triggering you to want to eat cake. Does that make sense? I keep answering that, but

James : 34:27

Or, or, it, you, almost flushed upon you. So, I'll give you an example. I mentioned beforehand that I had a tooth out. Now, I've had three teeth out at the moment. good, because I always used to love eating fruit. But also, I've got a sweet tooth. I'm almost, I've got this idea in my head, that I don't want to end up in my fifties, with false teeth like my nan. So suddenly, that kind of feeling, it's like, no, okay, so then it makes it easier. So I've realized that putting sugar out, I've got to do it. I have to do it, otherwise I end up with false teeth.

Stephen Hinds: 35:07

Now that's, that's a, that is one method to do it. Okay. I would counter that with you're in constant denial. You've got to be constantly vigilant. You'll eventually have a thing called decision fatigue where it will be 10 o'clock on a Saturday night and something else will have happened in your life because think, listen to me describe this and see if you recognize it. As events are happening in your life and emotions are being felt in your body. You're just writing out a list of, I shouldn't eat sugar, however, you know, football team just got beat, it's Saturday night, come on, everybody's entitled to have a little bit of a good time. It's only going to be one bag of haribo. It's alright, I'll go to the gym and do an extra half. Are you hearing this? yeah, this, this is your body and your mind convincing you because they know the Haribo is in the fridge, you see? So, that's you got, that's you, you've got to be vigilant against that and that's why so many people fail. However, if you understand the systems involved, that it's carbs that you're craving. And if you can set up in a routine where you're getting more protein into your body at the right times and you anticipate that Friday nights are your absolute kryptonite, you know, when you're sat watching your favorite TV show and you're comfy after a hard week's work and you know that time is when the carb attack is going to come because it's carbs. It's not sugar. It's not horrible. So you can prep and prime your body to have enough protein in it, which subdues that craving. And then suddenly, you're sat in front of the telly and your partner will say, Do you want some haribo? And you will naturally go no. It's okay. You see? Now, what's the smarter, most likely to be continued version? Preparation or denial? You see what I mean?

James : 37:08

If you become more conscious, it'll be preparation. But I always, there's always going to be times where it's just going to get you some point.

Stephen Hinds: 37:18

This is my point. If you're prepared and you get into habits and routines. Guess what you get? You get the chance to say actually it's Friday night, I'm going to have some Haribo. But here's a question that I always ask people. People, I've helped people stop smoking, stop drinking, stop various different things, right? All you have to do is ask yourself at the time of choosing, am I choosing this because I want it or because I need it? And if, even if you need it, that's cool because then what I say is, okay, you need it, fair enough, you've lost this battle, but let's see if we can win something back. I need it, I'm going to have some Haribo, I'm going to have a beer, right, but it's quarter past nine, I'm going to have it at 9. 30. So you're not doing the blanket denial, which will crush you because you'll spend your whole night saying beer, beer, got to have a beer, need a beer, need a beer. Yeah. No, you take control of your mind and your body in the situation. And you say, I'm going to have a beer at 930. 930 comes and you go, I'm going to have to have a beer. Good. Celebrate it because you needed a quarter past and you didn't have it until half past. Subtle changes, but it keeps you in control, right? Then you accept, yeah, I fell off the wagon. Next day you wake up, no guilt, no shame. You just do an after action review, as we call it in the military, say, right, let's make sure this doesn't happen again. That's how it works. That's, that's the. Secret to long term habit for me.

James : 39:04

So can you go into a little bit more detail with that? Because I know from Shaw that habits is the key. So a great example is my habit I do before I go shopping is I'll have food. So when I'm in the shop, I'm less likely to shove loads of crap into my trolley. Or another one might be having egg with avocado for breakfast because I know that fills me up and I'm less likely to snack. How, how do you help clients to build new habits?

Stephen Hinds: 39:36

right. So I use a thing from Dr. Ben Hardy and it's called the, the, the future self and your future self can be you tonight, you next week, you next month, next year, 10 years time, whatever it is. Right. So it all starts with being conscious. And taking control of the situation and let's use your example of the shopping thing, right? You've projected into the future in two hours time I'm going to be in Asda, Tesco, whatever, right? And I know that those aisles are designed specifically to catch my eyes with all the chocolate and sweets and everything like that. That's their job. That's why they make billions of pounds a year. By catching poor, you know, unsuspecting idiots like us with all the shiny wrappers and the discounts and all that. So that's your future version of yourself. James, James at five o'clock is going to be in is going to be in Tesco. Let's prepare for that. Let's visualize that. Right. What can I do? I know what I can do. I can eat some protein. I can get something in my body that's going to curb that. Primeval response to try and get carbs when I'm surrounded by carbs. So that's how you do it. You look to the future version yourself And you kind of ask them, what would that version of James want me to do? So, James, your 50 year old James, or your Saturday afternoon James, both want you not to put sweets in your trolley. So, what would their advice would be? Go and have a banana right now, or go and have something. Protein shake or something like that. So that when you are in that, when you're in that threat zone, shall we say that you've got your best armed for, for that experience

James : 41:28

That makes sense. So it's like visualisation, visualising yourself

Stephen Hinds: 41:32

your future self.

James : 41:33

10, yourself 10, 15 years time and really allowing yourself to feel into it.

Stephen Hinds: 41:40

Yeah. Make, make them your new best friend, right? So instead of this inner voice that you have now saying, go on, get the sweets, get the cake. You can actually train using, I have a six week coaching program, sorry to drop that in there, where by doing repetitions and visualizations of these kind of things, we can literally rewire your brain such that it would show up on an MRI scan as being rewired. Where you would have a different experience to what you've always done all your life. So even though you're 40 now, and you say, Oh, I'm just a sugar man. I'm a fiend for jelly babies. We can change that in six weeks and make you think it's ridiculous. The idea even to drink, even to eat a jelly baby, you know, so that that's all possible. But you do that by visualizing your future self and asking them what they would want you to do. Then you listen to that voice.

James : 42:41

Many men have grown up over the years with the idea thinking feeling emotions is weak. How can men overcome that belief and how can they start to allow themselves to feel what's going on? Say for example having a hard day. But they can't, they're not allowed to feel that anger. How would you suggest that they can start to allow themselves to feel that anger?

Stephen Hinds: 43:11

So, there's nothing in the human body, apart from the earlobes and the appendix, that isn't there for a reason. Physical, mental, emotional, physiological. They all have a purpose. Okay? And, we subdue anything at our peril. So if your body wants to sleep and you keep it awake, it will bite you. Yeah? Same with anger, same with sorrow, same with any kind of emotion, really. It has to, it has to have an outlet. So let's take anger, for instance. If someone, if someone is living a life as a painter and decorator, Right. Or they're working in the factory or they're working in an office or whatever. And they're feeling so angry that they feel like they have to have a physical outburst. Then that first of all tells me there's something in that environment is not right. And I would go back to my life audit. Things that give you joy, things that take your joy. Because it's not normal. Left to its own devices, the human body will not be angry. It's not a healthy condition to be in. It's not an efficient thing, condition to be in. Okay, so there's something in the environment that's causing that emotion to happen. And that's the first thing you've got to look at, because your body will not be denied. It will come out somewhere. It will either come out in a balanced safe way, or it will appear somewhere, road rage, excess alcohol, fighting in the pub. Arguing with the wife or worse, that kind of thing, that energy must come out. Energy cannot be created or taken away. It's got to go to another place, right? So, this is, this is why, point number one, if you're feeling unnatural emotions, often, more often than the circumstance would apply, I mean, if you're in a patrol base in Afghanistan, and you're feeling daily angry, stressed, frightened, you know, upset, then that's fine because the environment matches the emotion. But if you're living your average working day and you're feeling extreme emotions, something's out of the line. Remember, go back to our two external personas, our internal persona. The further apart they are, the more inclined we are for stress and stuff like that. So that said, when we do feel emotions, we should feel emotions. We should let them happen. You know, big boys don't cry and all that rubbish, right? Trust me. I have been in three war zones. I have seen some of the biggest, scariest human beings, right? Whose tattoos have got tattoos. Right? And I have seen them sob like babies. And I don't remember any of the other heroes around them thinking any less of them for it. Because it was, it's a natural response. It's often a mark of respect, it's grief, it's a mark of love for other people, that kind of thing. And the right people in your right tribe around you will not judge you. It goes back to this weakness, vulnerability piece, yeah? If you've got a problem with a man crying, It's your problem. It's not his problem. He's showing vulnerability. You're showing weakness. So, but at the same time, you don't want to be in the middle of a boardroom, just solving your heart out, you know? So again, it's about awareness. It's about catching it beforehand, anticipating I'm going to, supposing your dogs just died, right? I don't make that flippantly because I, I've rescued 1500 dogs and dogs are, you know, the more people I meet, the more I love dogs. That's how my life is. So if one of my dogs has been ill or injured or died recently and I'm going into a boardroom meeting, I'm aware of that. And I might say to people, Hey folks, just to make you aware, we had a situation this morning. One of our dogs passed away. I'm here. I'm, you know, I'm going to do the best I can. But, you know, you know, at least you understand the background and then someone will say something that will trigger an emotion and yeah, you might get a bit of a tear in your eye and a bit of a sob, you know, that's understandable and I've preempted it and I'm showing a bit of vulnerability. What I wouldn't do is. Throw myself on the floor and say, oh, poor Rusty he's my favorite dog. You know, and, you know, that would be inappropriate'cause there's no need for that kind of behavior. But the, the visceral feeling of emotions is utterly allowed and important that we allow it out, you know? So if, if you don't want to do it publicly, go and take yourself into a private space. Go for a walk and go and sob your heart out. But do not try and keep a lid on it. Okay.

James : 48:20

Yeah, sounds, it sounds good because I know from my own experiences that I've had issues with pent up anger and I used to, until I became aware of it, used to go out drinking and that's how my anger would release because when I'm sober I would push it down. But when I drank, there was this idea that suddenly it would come out with a vengeance. But, obviously becoming aware of that I was able to find more healthier ways such as, I can focus anger when I do exercise, I can shout into a pillow when I'm by myself, other, other ways like that.

Stephen Hinds: 49:03

So those are outputs and that's fine and it's great that you've, you've understood that. But so many people are living that right now in the twenties, thirties, forties. And it's, that's the important thing. That's what's causing our the explosion and mental health issues, right? Because Never, never before has it been so apparent to us what perfection looks like. Every Instagram post we see, every advertising, every, every Netflix movie we see, we see this fallacy of perfectionism. And consciously or subconsciously, we have been primed that we're not good enough. And that, you know, if we only buy that soap or we only wear those clothes, we'll, we'll be just that little bit better. The whole industrial complex, media complex is geared against us. The news is geared against us, right? The news is just four minutes of depressing noise between advertising revenue. That's all it is. It's, it's tapping into our evolutionary need to understand the fear and the threat. So they tell us really bad news for four minutes. And you know, it's just at the end of the four minutes to say, but that's not all. Something terrible has happened as well. We'll tell you that after the break. Watch all these adverbs on Shite that you don't need but your brain's there tuned like, oh my god, what happened? What happened in that wee village in some place in Africa that I can't even pronounce? I need to know. You know, we have all these systems in our bodies and that can trigger depression, anxiety, anger, all of these kind of things. So it's important that we manage our environment, but if we're feeling these things too often, then that's when we need to talk to someone else. It could be a friend but ideally a coach, this is why we do what we do because we can identify it. This is so important because this, this is a why I do my job and one of my biggest frustrations in my job. I deal with people in the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, right? And I give them insights and this isn't just me. This isn't a pitch because most coaches, any good coach can do this. I give them insights into things. I take them back to places where say, well, that was the incident that caused this. And this, this pattern is repeating throughout your life. And they say, my God, I've, I've carried this with me for decades. I've always thought I wasn't good enough. I've always been this person. And I just give them insights. And every day, this is my passion, my joy in this job. Every day I get messages on my phone saying, Oh my God, I've had this insight of this breakthrough. You've changed my life. You've saved my life. You know, because we carry this, the voices, the stories that we tell ourselves in our head. If they're the things that are causing these problems, then you need to talk to someone who can just talk you through them. So just saying things out loud can be all it takes to cause that bubble to burst and you go, my God, there is hope. I'm not broken, you know, so anyone who's suffering anger, depression, anxiety, doing, doing harm to themselves or others, it's not normal. It is not normal. There is an underlying problem that must be addressed because it will not go away on its own. It's another key factor as well.

James : 52:44

So what are some key daily practices people can do in order to start to uncover some of these stories that we're telling ourselves with our mental health. Yeah,

Stephen Hinds: 53:01

So if you're feeling unhappy, if you, if you think the whole world's coming at you, I promise you it's not. We've never been safer, healthier, luckier, richer than we are today. All right. The media doesn't want you to know that. But again, I've been in three wars. I've seen every culture. I've been all around the world. I promise you the human animal is fundamentally kind and community focused. Right. And if anyone disagrees with this, I'll ask you to do this simple exercise, compare the amount of evil people, evil, bad people that you have actually met. Eyeball to eyeball in your life, not read about, heard about, had an entire nation or creed or whatever be described to you. Actually met in your life and compare it to the number of good people or at least neutral people that you've met in the last week. And that list will be infinitely larger than that list of evil people for your entire life. So that's just basic maths. The world is not as bad as the media and the politicians will wish that. So getting into that mindset. Now, I actually have a five day course on, on I'll give you the link. You can drop it in there on it's free. It's on YouTube. I call it my five day challenge and it's a challenge to change your mindset about you and about the world. And one of those things in there is an exercise called the CIA model control influence except we've only got 100 percent of energy that we can give out in the day, right? It's how we're designed. So when we, when we define our day in those three categories. We can allocate energy accordingly. Things I can control, things I can do, say, think, not do, not say, not think, influence my partner, my family, my colleagues, my immediate vicinity. I can influence them. I can ask them to do stuff. I can hope they will do things. Everything else falls into the accept or ignore category. Right, so the, the Ukraine war, the climate, the hurricanes that are happening, the typhoons that are happening. If you're sat in Wrexham or Barnsley, And it's a Monday morning, right? It's okay to be aware of those things. It's okay as a human to have compassion for people who are suffering. But if you're not sleeping because of the typhoons in Senegal, if that's even possible, then you're burning energy from your finite battery, you're burning energy and stuff that you cannot influence or control, guess where that balance gets taken from? From the areas that you can control, the areas you can influence. So if you're not turning up for yourself or you're not turning up for your family or your job because you're burning energy over here on things that are way beyond your control, then that's an awareness that you can adjust. And say, I'm not going to, I'm not going to give energy to that because I can't change it, you know, so that's the CIA model. Gratitude's another one. We, we need three positives in our life to counter one negative because all of the people in the caves when we were cavemen who heard the strange noise and went, Oh, I wonder what that is. They all got eaten by the strange noise, right? So we learn to be cautious. We learn to err on the side of safety and be negative. Right. So all the ones that survived in the caves were the ones that were saying, no, I don't want to go there. That sounds scary. You know, that was an evolutionary thing. So we are tuned to the negative. That's why the media always gave us negative stuff. Can you imagine if Sky News come on and said, Hey, everything's fabulous. Honestly, the world's going great. We don't go. Oh, I wasn't expecting that. Fair enough. Switch off the news. That doesn't work. They need to sell advertising revenue. So they need to say, right, the whole world's great, but seeing this tiny little corner here, there's some shit going down. And we're going to send all the reporters there and we're going to cover it for the next five days. Well, our brains suck that in and say, my God, the world must be a terrible place. Look, those people in, you know, butt fuck nowhere in Louisiana are still got no home. That's 8 billion people and we found 20 of them are having a bad day. You see how our minds can be focused in on the negativity so we can understand that we can control that and we can say, right, let's think of three things that I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for my wife. I'm grateful for my daughter. I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my dogs, you know, and I consciously pump these positive things into my brain to override the default negativity. So gratitude is another one. Got time for one more?

James : 58:06

yeah, yeah.

Stephen Hinds: 58:07

Right. Our emotional body It's much more powerful than our conscious brain. Conscious thinking is late to the party and it's, it's the, it's the weakest part of us. Our emotions will always overcome our thoughts, all right? Except when we use breathing, right? So, all of our senses, hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, all, all these things, all they are, are interfaces to get knowledge to the brain, so the brain can decide. Are we fighting tigers, or are we resting, are we digesting, sleeping? That's the binary decision that your brain makes. So it's taking all of this input in. Sky News is coming in, Facebook's coming in, and all that kind of thing. And it's telling our nervous system, holy moly. Never seen so many saber toothed tigers, you know, we've got to pump our bodies full of cortisol and adrenaline. We've got to be on edge. We've got to be ready for the fight at any second. That's what, that's what Facebook and Sky News is making our bodies do. Now, we can't control our blood pressure. We can't control this noise that's coming at us. We can, we can switch it off. But the thing that we can control is our breathing and there's a thing called heart rate variability. The brain listens to the heart. There's, there's neurons around the heart, which send signals to the brain. And it's the. It's the variability of the electrical signals between our heartbeats that tell the brain whether we are preparing to fight Tiger or not. So, by, if you're stressed, this is something that fighter pilots use incidentally, right? Most extreme physical duress, mental pressure that people are under. By, it's a very simple acronym, it's BREATHE. Breathe regularly, evenly, and through the heart. And if you can just take a minute or two to sit with your eyes closed somewhere. And just make your breathing even, so no sharp sawtooth breaths. Not like this, just gentle natural breaths, but make it as smooth as you can. What you'll do is you'll, you'll smooth out your heart rate. It'll slow down, but it doesn't have to be super slow. But what you're doing is you're making the electrical signals between the beats. Stable. Those electrical signals around the heart send to the brain to say all must be well with the world. So it triggers what's called your parasympathetic nervous system that says calm, rest, relax the muscles, lower stress levels, everything like that. So by using your breathing alone, that's the only method or the main method that I know of. But we can impact our physiology directly. You can't, you can't increase your blood pressure. You can't make yourself warmer or colder without clothes, but your breath can talk the language that your brain understands to understand fight, flight, or rest and digest. So those are, those are three, three critical areas that, that you today can take charge of your mind and your body and your stress levels.

James : 1:01:24

Thank you very much, Stephan. Just quickly, can you just tell us what you do and how people can get in contact?

Stephen Hinds: 1:01:30

You'll find me on LinkedIn Stephen Hines, MBA. I'm I offer help to people who are already successful and independent and realizing that, as we said, they're coming to the end of the first age of man. And now they're wondering, how are they going to get out into the second age? Or they may not be aware that's the point that they're at and they're feeling this delta where they're, they're trying to be this guy in the office or this lady in the office. but their internal inner self is kicking and screaming. Those people want to talk to me. They can find me on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook. And what I offer is a 15 minute call just to say, hi, how are you? Who are you? And then I, I also have my five day challenge, which is free to people. I understand that some people don't want to work with a coach. They're not ready to be vulnerable or not. Maybe they just don't have the finances. Well, those five day, that five day challenge can be found on YouTube. It could also be find my LinkedIn thing my LinkedIn channel, but when we have a 15 minute call, what I will probably set up providing everything aligns. is we'll go through a one hour coaching session after that, where we'll say, this is what it feels like to be coached by me. And then at the end of that hour, generally people have massive, massive breakthroughs and insights. Very often you'll see grown men cry because I've finally given them permission for it to happen. But it's just a release of all this pent up energy. Then after that, we can say, right, let's look at my six week program, my three month program, that kind of thing. You know? So, there you go.

James : 1:03:06

Thank you very much.

Stephen Hinds: 1:03:08

You're welcome.