C J MEEKS 🥊

This week on The Human Mask Podcast…

C.J. Meeks has built a name for himself through combat sports, fitness and the ever-changing world of online content. But behind the highlights, the streams and the public image is a human being with a story that most people never get to hear.

On The Human Mask, we’re not interested in the mask people wear online. We’re interested in the person underneath it.

Who is C.J. when the cameras are off? What shaped him? What drives him? How have success, pressure, criticism and social media changed the way he sees himself and the world around him?

As always, this isn’t just another interview. It’s a conversation about self-awareness, identity, human behaviour and judgment. The goal isn’t simply to learn about C.J. Meeks—it’s to leave knowing a little more about ourselves too.

Join us as we try to discover the real C.J. Meeks.

#selfaware #podcast

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Human Mask Podcast. Today I have got CJ Meeks with me. Welcome, CJ. Thanks for having me, mate. And I found CJ on social media, and I'm sure a lot of you would have seen CJ on social media. And what I liked about CJ and why I asked him to come on, and thank you that you did, because a long way from London, was the just sounds this sounds like bland. I don't mean to sound so bland, but the the normalness of him, the it's not the social media thing that you usually see. Um so thank you again, CJ.

SPEAKER_04 0:33

Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Now I don't know if you know or not know, there is one plan question.

SPEAKER_04 0:37

Oh go on, you didn't pre-warn me, go on.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

I've said to him about 50 times.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

I don't plan anything on this podcast, but there is one question that I ask, and it's not to trip anybody up. It is because obviously what I'm trying to do is create self-awareness in the listener through the guest. So there's no egos involved. We're all just normal people, we're all got the same worries and fears as everyone that listens or watches. Anyway, you know, people think that this polished here, but they're not everyone's just the same. But what is good for the listener to do is is imagine when I ask a question or the answer you give is for them to hopefully to think and it could change their life for the better because they self-reflect and grow from there, I suppose. So it is a tough question. Oh okay. It depends how tough you want to make it, though, doesn't it? Okay. Now the way I ask it is so I don't want the standard answer, but your brain will go to the standard answer. So if you want a minute, have a minute. The first question I ask every single guest is who are you?

SPEAKER_04 1:36

I'm CJ. There we go, podcast right now. That'll do Chester.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Best answer we've had. Um I'll just carry on. I am um registered on the podcast. I mean, CJ gets more thinking time.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

I am uh just a 38-year-old man, very proud dad. You touched on it already, I'm just a normal geezer that's had good times, I've had bad times, and um I just try to be as honest as I can about the goods and more so the bad. And people seem to resonate with it. So um who am I as a person? I used to fight back in the day as a competitor, I trained and fought at a pro level. I was never famous, I was never Conor McGregor, but I was UK level at best. And I gained a lot of experience, and I've been in fighting gyms my entire life. Um and that kind of made me who I am now, and I learned a lot of lessons from that. And that's where I kind of get a lot of my who I am today from what I learned in that game, that sport. And now I'm just here trying to just spread a bit of positivity. And you touched on it already, telling everyone that you know we are all going through it, we are all feeling the same, we are all here just making the best of what's put in front of us. And um I don't know if that's answered your question.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

I mean with with that question, it's because some people answer it on a really deep level. If they've done a load of work, because I say to people, like when you were in your mum's womb, right? I'm gonna go deep here. If you were just born in a field and your parents just walked away, because you are a product of your mum's personality, your dad's your your your your social circle, the culture at the time, and that forms who we are, if you like, doesn't it? A little bit. And it's trying to find part of the self-awareness journey is trying to find out who you are before all these things were put on you. See what I mean? Like an example I give was my dad was left by himself when he was 13. So science, science says your personality's kind of formed before then, but really he was then knocking about with football lads and stuff. So by the time he's had me, my personality is is it his or is it a product of all the makes he hung around with when he was 13? So who am I? Am I his mates? Am I him? Am I and it's those sort of deeper questions, I suppose. But what comes out usually when this question is asked, and if someone's not really looked into it, it sits with them and and and like a week later, two weeks later, a month later, somebody just pops up and they're like, Yeah, yeah, and they start looking at it. But one thing you did say in that sentence was you said um uh just trying to be honest, and then you you put it to the social media that you do, but really you you also meant with yourself then, didn't you? Being honest with yourself with with the the experiences that that you've had. So I suppose what's coming to my head then is the the experiences that you've had and being honest with yourself. Do you do any sort of do you recognise something that's is not helping you or your life, and then you do try and change it, and how do you change it? Does that make sense? There might be a trait, a pattern about you.

SPEAKER_04 4:55

Yeah, um so I had a I had a spell of, as I mentioned before, competing and I made my entire being about fighting. That's what I was I was all in, and um that came to kind of an abrupt end. I fell out of love with the entire game, and I suppose I had to kind of find myself a little bit after that because I didn't know what what what to go and do, I had to start again, and um this thing that I dedicated my entire life to just stopped. How did it stop? Uh how did it stop? I I I feel like you got kind of like a candle inside you for something like that, and um my candle would just burn out. I never spoke to anyone about it, I never I never really took time to sort of deal with it. I just I was fighting the last couple of fights I would say that I went out and um fought something changed. And I don't know what it was, as I say I never spoke to anyone about it. Just it was different. Like as a fighter, you would go out there and you would, you know, get hit and you would uh you would go back at someone, whereas this was completely different. Um I'd get hit and shy away, I'd find a way out. I didn't want to be there. And at that point there, I was like, what are you doing? Like you this isn't a team sport, you can't have a bad day. If you have a bad day in the cage, you're gonna get concussion, really seriously hurt. So it was time to uh go, no. Do you know what? For me, it felt at that time I can't do this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

How old was you? 30. Oh sorry, you're 38 now. This is about eight years ago. Was something happening in your life along parallel run alongside that when that happened? Was anything what was happening in your life at the time?

SPEAKER_04 6:35

Potentially, nothing like too traumatic, no, not really, no like a split up or a No I was with someone, I was with someone then, and I can't really say anything too bad about it. I'm not with the same person now, but um it I just I just ran out. I just run out of steam, I'd just run out of fight, and um I kind of accepted it and I and I and I I gave up and um at some I look back on, I think, oh maybe I should have just taken a bit of a time away, you just burnt out a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

I was gonna say that. What did you did? You have a team or what is that what it's called? Like a team? Yeah. What were they saying to you? How did you tell them? Sorry, Dave, I'm not coming back Wednesday. You know what I mean? How did it go?

SPEAKER_04 7:14

Like I'd I I think I was pretty honest about it. I didn't want to be a fighter that that you know, some guys they'll stay in the gym and they'll say, Oh yeah, I want to fight and bomb bomb. You can see they don't want to fight no more. And I didn't want to be someone, I didn't want to be that. And um I'd just kind of in my head I'd kind of accepted that this isn't what I'm gonna do, this isn't what I'm gonna be, and I gave up.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

And um You say it negatively, like give up, like you, but it's not a negative, you mean you See what I'm saying? It's it sounds like like a quitter, but that doesn't that's not the truth, is it?

SPEAKER_04 7:46

A little bit of me feels like I quit.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

That's what I can tell by the way you're saying that, but that I don't think I don't see that as you as it being a quitter as such.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

No.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

You've you've had some sort of realisation that you don't know where or why it's come from.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

And you've decided to go on a different path.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Do you believe in like the universe and trusting the vibes and bits and bugs like that? Do you know?

SPEAKER_04 8:04

I believe in I believe in being positive, you put positivity out there, you get positivity back. And I would say that if you walk around being negative, you're only gonna see more negative, aren't you? And if you walk around, like we were saying earlier, you walk around, do come do something like this, like you're putting yourself out of there. And um, you know, that that that creates other opportunities and other things, and uh so I believe in yeah, I believe to some extent I'm not spiritual, I'm not religious, I'm I'm I'm not any of that stuff at all. I'm more so what's it all about, mate? I've absolutely no idea.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Proper broke on here, isn't it? Absolutely no idea. 90% of people watch go don't know either, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

And I think that's why people kind of get in behind me because I'm standing here, I'm sitting here saying, I ain't got a clue what I'm doing most of the time. I'm just making the best of what we've got on our plate in front of us.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

And uh you know, from the universal spiritual perspective that I'm I'm aware of, that is living in the moment which is hard to stage to get to, and it's going with the flow, which is a hard stage to get to. It's like you're naturally there, but you don't because you don't you don't believe in it and stuff, or like the we side of it, yeah, it means you're not resonating with it. Because like it's all everything's just meant to be. So like you wouldn't have probably be sat here if you'd have carried on doing it. So something inside you has made you stop. Because you don't even know yourself why you stopped, do you really?

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Not not really, no, not really. I'd just kind of had enough of it, and I've been training since young, young. Like my dad sort of put me into boxing at 12.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

And was he pushy or not? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:34

Or was he? Oh, there was no choice. There was no choice. It was no, you are going to boxing Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays. And um I'd cry before I'd want to go. I was I was but I think he saw that I was probably gonna be bullied. I was uh a tall, lanky streak of piss for a better for want of a better term.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

You're not now, are you?

SPEAKER_04 9:55

I still feel it. I look in the mirror, I still see that. Really? I still I'm telling you, I still see I had this chat with my missus because she says, Oh, she's got slimmer now, and she says, Oh, I still feel still feel chubby. I'm like, you're not. And she says the same to me because I look in the mirror and I don't see it. I just see this skinny little 13-year-old. Really? Honestly.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

First thing I said to when he got to the train station, the only person I said that to was Arms when I picked Arms up from the train station.

SPEAKER_04 10:17

Yeah, he's a lump and he's a big fella.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah, but I've sort of I same thing I said to Arms, I went, Flipping it, you're taller and bigger than I thought you was, didn't I?

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

So yeah, that's mad that that's how your own but like we were talking about, I I can't watch my own podcast back. And it's it's for that, everyone's got that same thing, haven't they? I watched some of them, I've accidentally watched them and go, oh, look how I think I look XYZ. Yeah. It's just a normal feeling to have, isn't it? And everyone's even though I'm telling you that's not how you look, you still can't that's how you see it.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. That's how I feel. I still look back and I still feel like that skinny little. I was I mean, I got tall early, so I got I was tall, like six foot, probably at like 14, 15. But I weighed like 70 kg. I was just skin and bone. But I think I was I was it I was painfully shy, like painfully shy.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

And uh so where did that come? Then we're talking about who you are and stuff. Yeah. What who's got that trait near you, or is that just in you naturally? My mum's. So you got that from your mum's side?

SPEAKER_04 11:09

Mum, my dad was uh he's still alive, I say was, but dad was um alpha male, you know, and uh very strong character. And my mum was completely the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

That's like me and my miss, is that is yeah, completely the opposite. I'm not as I'm not as alpha as your dad means, but what I'm saying is that the opposite personalities. Yeah, I didn't mean that. Don't try and beat me up anymore.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

But um it it she's they're polar opposites. She's quite like a little mouse. And um you got brothers and sisters? I've got a sister who is completely the polar opposite to me.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

After the dad?

unknown 11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

She's older, younger.

SPEAKER_04 11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

She's older or younger than you. She's five years younger than me.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Right.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

Four years younger than me, yeah. So she's uh 34 or so.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

When you were growing up, did you spend a lot of time with your mum? Was he at work and your mum was at home or had it?

SPEAKER_04 11:52

So yeah, dad went to work. Um mum uh stayed at home. Um she had little part-time jobs here and there, but um yeah, mum was there for a lot of the time, and then I'm useless at dates' memories, but 16 or so I was, I believe, around about that time they split up. Never had an argument, never they'd I'd never seen them say a crosswind to each other, but they split up.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

So they come out of the blue to you? Out of the blue. Your sister was only 11 then. Yeah, so it's tougher for her, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 12:20

Probably, yeah, I imagine so. Yeah, yeah. But she's completely opposite to me. She's angry.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

You're smiling as you're talking about. What's her name?

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Clara. Clara, calm down, Clara. Clara, Clara, Clara, yeah. She won't mind me saying that. She's angry. She's angry, and and I'm not particularly angry. So yeah, it's funny how we my dad was very strong, and my mum was very sort of passive, and uh I feel like I've got a nice little mix of the both.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

I think that's it could be in you if you need it. It's there to draw upon your dad's side, it's a bit.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

Yeah, but uh growing up, you you know, you have your role models and you look at like I suppose my dad, I looked at my dad, he was this big strong character, and I thought, oh, what would dad do in this situation? But as I've grown up, I realize that sometimes it probably wasn't the best. Yeah, because he because he says himself he was um a tough, yeah, he was a strong character.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

He didn't mind having a row. No, yeah, so he would have a row, yeah. He still will now.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

65, uh I get yeah, so 58 date of birth, so whatever that makes him 56, whatever, yeah. So um, but it was still but that's the last thing to leave you. That's strength. You know, when you've got that, you know, you shake someone's hand.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

I've had it a few times in in outside of you know different other things, and you meet an older guy and they'll shake your hand. They've got that.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

I know exactly what you mean.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

Oh right, like yeah, they're still they still got that.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

The forearms are massive and all that, yeah, yeah. Old school, yeah, old school, yeah. So so he was so he was pushing into the into the boxing side of it. So maybe it's a case of that then. What when did you so you how old was you when you started? 30.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Yes, started.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

So you become like your own man in a way and probably something inside you've gone, do you know what? I'm alright.

SPEAKER_04 13:57

Yeah, yeah. But I as I say, started at 12 and then trained different bits and bobs. I was a massive WWF fan, like uh, you know, like Goldberg, and I just loved it. I just loved I was like, Dad, dad, dad, like he just hit him with that chair. Can you believe it? And my dad had come in. My dad, so my dad was a unlicensed boxer, he was he out of Burmansey and he had a he had a fight. Definitely Andy then. So he could so he knew he knew, you know, he knew how to throw a punch and he knew about real fighting, as in like, you know, compared to wrestling. But I'm sat there like dad, he just got a bit of barbed wire and he hit that guy with it. Yeah, he wrapped it around the thing and it hit him. And he'd come home and be like, son, it's not real. No, but it is dad. It's bleeding, yeah. It's bleeding. So I don't know if this was good parenting or not, but my dad then went away, and we're talking about this was UFD one days, so we're talking 25 odd years ago or so. Um, maybe just over. And this was when the UFC DVDs or videos, you'd have to go to like a pawn shop, you know, like it was under the counter. Like, we got some of that, like, no, not MILFs, like it's like give me that UFC one, you know what I mean? Um so he sourced this. I can't remember it was a video or DVD, I think it might have been DVD just, but anyway, UFC one, and it was this tiny little Brazilian jujitsu guy ripping arms off of these huge.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Oh, I remember that was no weight class and stuff, was it?

SPEAKER_04 15:18

They just used to put, yeah, I just had a flashback, yeah. And as a tiny little skinny little fella, like little kid, I was like, oh my god, I wanna I want to be like him. So then I went from the boxing, which I just wasn't I just I wasn't tough, I wasn't tough. Like I had one amateur fight as a boxer, I got my head punched in. How old? I won. Oh school, school age, like 14 or so. Oh, you won though? I won on points. I have no idea how. I think they felt sorry for me. They must have just been like a draw, give it in. Yeah, yeah, this poor lad. The state of him. So I I I don't know how I won, but I won my only amateur boxing match, and after that, I think my dad saw that he was like, You haven't got to do that again. Like, you've uh you've shown me you got the bottle to do it, you've done it, you haven't got to do that again. So then I was like, right, well, I want to be I want to be like him. I want to be like that Brazilian jiu-jitsu guy. So uh I used to get on, I lived in Kent at the time, it's kind of like south-east past the the border of London, and then I'd get on a train on my own, I think I was 15, whatever, 16. I'd get on a train three nights a week, and I'd go and train Brazilian Juj Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, BJJ, at um London Bridge. And uh from then I fell in love with it. Fell in love with it, but then suddenly I could I could box a little bit and I had a little bit of knowledge on the ground. Then I wanted to do MMA, then I wanted to do the UFC, I wanted to go. And then that was from that age there, you just couldn't stop me. I was just like, that's what I'm gonna do, that's what I want to be, and I just I worshipped it. I think I had my first amateur fight, MMA, semi-pro, MMA, whatever, at like 17, maybe. I don't think I even told my mum and dad, I just went and done it. Um but yeah, uh after that, I just kind of fell in love with it and I and I and I done that all the way up until about 30 or so. And then hit a wall. That was it. No real reason. Stopped watching fighting for a few years, stopped just it. I just I I was so sick of it, I hated it. That it hadn't and it hadn't come to it and come to what I'd kind of thought it was gonna, and I was angry, you know what I mean? I was angry with it, and I was like, fuck, uh sorry, um F this, like I ain't I it's his rubbish. And and and a little bit of it was I'd got to a big show, uh one of my last fights was on a was on a big show, on a on a it wasn't quite UFC, but you had at a time it was a Bellator, a smaller show. And in my in my in my mind, it was always like, oh get to this stage, get to the big stage, and and and I got to the big stage and I was like, is this it? Like you get paid. I get treated, I got terrible money. I was getting I got terrible money. I think I I didn't even get a grand for that fight, it was terrible. Like, and you got your camp before that and all that, it was terrible. But I was getting more money on the smaller shows because I was the big fish. I would be like near the main event or whatever, because I was selling 100, 150 tickets on a little show, and that meant you know, you they would put you up the so I was getting more money on on little shows and you could negotiate a better ticket deal then. That's one thing I don't miss, you know, all that selling ticket stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah, god mate. Because you feel like you're tapping them up all the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

Yeah, but uh as as I you know, as I the further the more I done, the more of a crowd that I that I got, and um I made more money on the little of the shows, but I got to that big show and I was just treated like shit. And at the end of the day, like you're there to fight. But little things before, like I had no like you had no warm-up time. It was like, right, you're on, you're a number, go bang. That was it. And it was like, but the world class guys turn it on and go and do that. And in my mind, I wasn't world class after that. Because I was like, I just yeah, I just thought this is shit. I I I just didn't perform. But then there's that really weird thing about fighting, which I've kind of realised as I've stopped it and and and looking back, that you can have the most phenomenal training camp and everything can go right. You can go out on the night and I want to be there. And and you can't quantify that, you can't predict if that's gonna happen or not. Which is which is again, that's what distinguishes a world-class guy and not, because the world-class guy, whether he's got the flute or whether his missus had argument with him two days before, or whatever it is, he will go out there and he'll perform. And that is what makes a champion.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

And but what makes a champion? Do you know what I mean? What that's what like you know, discovery of human nature and behaviour, what makes that person different to that person? They're both bones, skin. Where does it come from?

SPEAKER_04 19:38

I don't know. Of the ability to just switch everything off and go and perform. Yeah, where's it come from? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

I mean it's like going back to like, was it the mum, the dad? Is it their birth sign, their astrology, is it their soul? It's it's mad.

SPEAKER_04 19:50

But I think it's hard to explain. You said you had a white collar fight.

SPEAKER_02 19:54

Yeah, yeah, years ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:55

Yeah, yeah. So you've you've tasted what it is like to step out there, but it's hard to explain to people that haven't.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

I could hear them baying for blood before I went up. It was in a nightclub. You could hear them baying for blood. Like like you felt like a Roman gladiator.

SPEAKER_04 20:08

That is exactly the way I would describe it to someone who's never done it. Yeah, and you cannot tell people how scary that is. And and everyone else is there with their beers and kick him in the nuts, punch him in the air, and you're like, Yeah, yeah, buy in. And you're just like, What have I signed myself up for here? But that I've you that that's normal. Everyone feels that, unless you're a complete psychopath. Like there is there is some nutty people out there, but nine times out of ten, everyone goes through that. Uh, some of my mates who were really high level, better than me, before it, every time one of my mates would say to me, Why have why am I here? Like, what have I why have I signed myself up to do this again? Why? But then you go out there and he would perform, and he was a champion, he would perform.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

We look at that Luke Dyson, for example. I've had him on the podcast. I think he had was it eight fights in one weekend or something like that. You know, he said he was driving up to Barnsley, his face all mashed up, and he's going straight into the next fight. That's just phenomenal, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

I don't know how many he's up to now, but the last time I see him on social media, he was up to like 160 or something, some mad number of fights.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

You know, and then the people that don't know in the comments, yeah, but he leaves his lats. It's not about that, is it?

SPEAKER_04 21:15

That's the uh one of the downsides to what I am doing and putting myself out there on social media and whatnot is you do get a lot of that. Do you get negative comments? All the time. Do you? All the time. How can anyone give you a negative comment?

SPEAKER_02 21:26

No I can understand someone like that big stacks like we spoke about and stuff. I can understand that. But you, how can anyone give you a negative comment? You're always gonna get someone go. You're not just do one thing controversial, you're just doing some it's mad, isn't it? You're always gonna get negative. I've never thought you'd get any.

unknown 21:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

But like what go on.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

Like, for example, I I I talk about my fight and stuff, but I talk about it from a place where I don't want to give it the big one.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Like, because Yeah, but you clearly don't, you clearly don't come across that you are giving the bigger, that's what I'm getting at. And that's and that's how can that trigger somebody?

SPEAKER_04 21:55

And that's what I like to that that's where I want to be. That's the you know, I'm not out I'm not out here saying, Oh, I've done this. Done that because I wasn't the best. I wasn't the best.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Yeah, but it's surely it's obvious that anybody with half an out of common sense, you're definitely not giving it the biggin' on there.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

But you will still get people a lot of the time, it's faceless accounts. Always. Why didn't you do it? I don't know. But you want give me an example, what they say. You will get people go onto like a fight uh record website and they will photocopy or they'll they'll copy and paste your record and they'll post your record and say, You fought a load of mugs anyway. Or look at this guy. Been beat. I mean, I think my my official pro record on these. Don't even say it.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Don't even tell them what it is. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

Your semi-pro stuff. So back when I was fighting, a rule set was like amateur semi-pro. I don't know if it's the same now, but semi-pro meant you had little big gloves, big eye gloves, but they were still little. And you could still do everything apart from knee to the head and st and punch on the floor. They were a watered-down set of MMA rules. You're still getting locked in a cage with a monster. Yeah. You're still gonna have a fight. And and and you're still getting really hurt. So I had I had quite a few more of those, but they've never gone. I've got pro fights that have never even been put on a record because we're fighting back in a time where you'd drive up to Wales or fight on a weekend and just you know get 300 quid and go home. Like you were lucky if the organisation filmed it off a phone or not all these nice new cameras that you've got nowadays, but it was a different time then. But um, yeah, you get guys that will photocopy what you've done. I photocopy, I keep saying that. Well will screenshot photocopy. We'll screenshot your record and say, You're you're giving people striking advice. Look how shit you are. Like what have you even done? Oh my god. And do you know what? I don't even I'm cringing for them. I'm like cringy about the I don't even write I don't even rise to it. You comment anything.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Sometimes I'll even like it.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Pause in, mate. Yeah, thumbs up.

SPEAKER_04 23:55

Because you know, no person, no successful person, no fighter even or whatever, no one's been there and done it themselves, sits on the internet and knocks other people. No, they just don't waste time because they're too busy being successful or being busy or doing other shit. Like, no one. But it it comes from it comes from a place where they're probably very unhappy with themselves.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Basically, it's a reflection of them, and they're so scared they want to probably go and help people out to box. They might be a good boxer, they might want to help, but they haven't got the the bollocks or the they're too scared to go and just do something themselves. It's that fear of failure that keep it keeps everyone down. Yeah, but you get it all the time. What made you um we've managed not to have a pre-podcast, haven't we? Just about. What made you because I first come across you uh with the post that you did. I told you didn't I that I showed my lad it and everything. Um and I love the way you did it. You uh you didn't, and I don't know if anyone's seen it. If you go and have a look on his page, it's pinned, it's the top right hand corner one. Um in a Mar Bayo, and the guy, Libert is took a took your mate's drink, and you go freeze, and that's the thing that gets you, doesn't it? You go freeze, what do you do now? And lad, lads, we've all been there, yeah. We're having a we're having a scrap now, that's happening, and it's just gonna go up and someone's gonna get hurt. And that post um went mad, didn't it?

SPEAKER_04 25:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

So what was that your very first ever time posting?

SPEAKER_04 25:11

Or no, no, that I'd been I had not really um I'd posted pictures of family and I never took Instagram seriously.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

I'd I put that was your personal page that you that's just gone.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

That was a personal page, but then it came to January uh of this year. I sat down with my missus and I'd done a year, I was just I'd say chronically unhappy, I was just really down and I was stuck doing a job that I kind of thought, oh, this isn't going anywhere.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Are you doing the same job or a different job?

SPEAKER_04 25:37

You have some of it is, but you do um Yeah, it led me to where I am now. So similar. Same same same.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

But you did move jobs as well, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You made a conscious decision to change something in your life, you spoke to your missus. Go on, sorry.

SPEAKER_04 25:48

Sat down and I was just like, I cannot do another year like this. I just can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

Was it the was it the colleagues? Was it the the job itself? No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

It was just it was the The routine of it. No, it was more the fu the job's fine. Like, like no one treats me bad. I don't I don't have a hard time. It's I just when you work with someone else, you haven't got that like um that buzz, that drive, you know, like that I don't know, the the the get up and go to go and earn more and do more, and I just kind of become a nine to five, although albeit night shift, you know, come home, don't do nothing. Alright, I look after them a little while as best I can, but that that's a given. But like I had no oomph, I had no drive, I was maybe doing a little bit of gym to try and make myself feel a bit better or whatever, but I just kind of got stuck. And I and I was staring down a barrel of this is gonna be me now forever. If I don't do anything, I'm gonna do a job that I don't particularly like. Earn enough just to pay some bills. Barely. You still get into the the the last 10 days of the thing and you're like, Jesus Christ, I've got like £25 to last me for £20.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah, I'm not living a champagne lifestyle, I'm just trying to get about it.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

You've paid your bills, you've paid your you know, your phone and whatever else you've got to pay, we're all in the same boat. But you get into that last quarter of the month and you've got no money left anyway. So you're living on beans on toast or whatever, which as many people are, you know, loads of people are still are at that point there. But I just think um I'd had enough. And I said to her, I can't do another year like this. And I was doing everything you're supposed to do as a man. I was looking after my family, I was, you know, doing a night shift job grafting. But it just I just needed something. I needed, I needed to get that buzz back.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Do you think this do you think that's your dad's side of kicking in?

unknown 27:32

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Like that, you know, that I don't know. The manly aggressive, aggressive testosterone side of like No, it's the want for more.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

It's the want more.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

Why isn't everybody doing something about it? I don't know. That's what I'm saying. So you're not I'm not saying it is unique to you, because I've been there and I know many other people might have been there, but there's so many people there that are there that don't, and they and they carry on until death. Yeah. So so what is it that you know what I'm saying? It's hard. I don't know the answer myself, by the way. I don't know. I'm I'm just saying, can you identify it?

SPEAKER_04 28:03

I just thought the s the thought of doing this for the next 20 years is scarier than having a go at doing something else and getting knocked back.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

Fucking perfect. Because that's exactly where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to say to people.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

So why am I gonna sit here now and and be unhappy and you know live this life that and there's millions of geezers doing that and there's nothing wrong with it.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Like, if you're happy, if you're happy, this is there is something wrong with it, isn't there?

SPEAKER_04 28:27

Of course, of course. But happy is like you're supposed to go and provide, you're supposed to, you know, you're it's the stuff you're supposed to do, you know. You leave school, you're told to go and get a job, get a mortgage, and boom, boom, boom. So it's not like I was slacking off or doing anything, but it was just I was just desperately unhappy. And as I say, I said to her, we can't do this anymore. And I actually looked at um when you're at zero, um, it's really hard to start anything. Like a business or so then I'm on I'm on auto trader. I'm like, right, shall I buy a van, do removals, shall I? I was looking at jet washers, shall I like I'm on Chat GBT, like what what what trade can I not study for very long at and go and earn money at? And and I'm I'm I'm doing this and I'm doing my homework and doing a lot of reading and I was like, jet washing, you can get good money at that, cleaning roofs or whatever. So then I'm like, right, well, where can I get 10 grand from to go and buy that? You know, I ain't got the money. So then it's like, and then I come round back to right, well just stick to your job and because you've got bills to pay, you're stuck. There's nothing there's nothing you can do here. So again, I I just got to a point where I was like, I've got to do something, like I've got to make something happen. And then I've got all of this experience in the fighting world that I've closed the door on. And I do a little bit of my bit a little bit of my own training, and I train the odd person here and there when they pop up, guys that I've trained for a long time, they might say, I'll CJ, let me do a little PT this week, I'd hold pads for them, a little bit of money on the side, but it's not, you know, it's your coffee money for two days, you know what I mean? It's not it's the way the way you can you spend money now, particularly in London. Mate, every time I leave the house with £20 in my pocket, my little one wants an ice cream, I buy a coffee, I buy a loaf of bread and some eggs. You've got nothing left, you know what I mean? Mad.

SPEAKER_02 30:08

London money is mad.

SPEAKER_04 30:09

Go on the days when 20 quid used to be like, oh yeah, I can go and have a night out for this, or so that's a whole other I know, so I know I was thinking about delving into it, but I wanted you to carry on.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

I wanted you to carry on where you were going. That's a whole other topic.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

But got to a point where I was just so sick of where I was, I was like, right, let me make something happen. And that video you mentioned was kind of like Born out of that. I would say that was the moment where I thought, hang on a second, there might be something here. Because I was posting and I'm What was you posting before that video? There was a load of I can't even remember, but if you look back at my old Instagram page, it'll be just family stuff. Family stuff, my daughter, because I had nothing else to celebrate for a period there of like three years or so. My own the only good thing I had going in my life was my little one. So that's all you see on my Instagram. That's all I had to celebrate. I you won't see me out partying or whatever, because I had no, I never went out for years. My mates would say, Oh come, I'll take you out for a drink or whatever. It in my head I'd say, What am I drinking for? I've got nothing to celebrate. Like, I'm stuck.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Like it's like every man, I always say every man needs a purpose, something. Every man needs something.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say so. And then something's just come up inside you there, and it's a but it's just ironic that I was looking, I was grabbing at straws, starting again at 38 years old, starting again, trying to find something, studying this, that, whatever, like buying a van, or you know, I was trying to find something, and what I found a little bit of success at was just being me and grabbing an iPhone and hitting a punch bag. And that that for me is just fascinating because as I say, I was looking at fully going down a path that I didn't want to go down.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

You're jet washing or flipping that.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Well, I mean, I got offered another uh Did you move jobs?

SPEAKER_02 31:47

Did you move jobs before the post or after the post?

SPEAKER_04 31:49

No, I didn't move jobs, so I basically got a promotion where I was into a different bit. Right. Um which again, which is just so mad how that came about because that gave me uh an incentive.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Was that before or after the post? After after the post. And the post you did, is that was that your first you're talking about the boxing.

SPEAKER_04 32:07

That one before, sorry, sorry, sorry. That one post, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

The one thing I'm using that in my in my head as like a a timeline. So even people watching and stuff, that's like a timeline to me. Like a like a point, a pinpoint in your life. I was just having a Because that post did come out, didn't it?

SPEAKER_04 32:21

Yeah, so I was just I started posting and then I said um you just do what post are you doing now?

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Just just shadow boxing and that.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

I just started shadow boxing showing that I could do a bit.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

And then suddenly And it's not really reaching much outside your little followers in your world.

SPEAKER_04 32:33

But then what I thought was right, well, let me learn how to make a better video. Let me learn this content thing. So as I said to you before, I bought a little bought a little course online.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

So that was before that post. That course you bought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:45

Ah, fair play, that's good. And that the the course I bought just broke down very simply how to make a video. What is a hook? You need a good light, you need a microphone, all stuff that when you've never filmed a video, you ain't got a clue. I don't know. I just think I can get an iPhone and go boom, boom, boom. So then, even I mean, I only paid like 90 quid for this course, but even if it just showed me, you know, how to structure a video, and then I started playing with it. Just started playing with it, and uh again, I'm getting no views, like nothing. I've got like 200 followers, like there's I've got you know, just family and friends.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Are they supporting you? Were they do you see many because I I saw you do a post, which I get, right? Same as you. Oh, hey up, Alex. Oh, you're doing that social media thing, aren't you? How's it going, mate? Or whatever. Are you earning money from it, yeah? First thing they say to me is what they said to you, and you said the same post. And I say, no, but I'm really enjoying it, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

And then I think that guy that just asked me, and I think never seen that person. So you know I'm doing it, but you didn't like, you didn't share, you didn't do anything, there's no support there. And you think it's just it's mad. It's a thing that's completely free. It doesn't cost them anything, does it? Yeah, and it's mad, isn't it? So anyway, that's the difference, that's the difference of it.

SPEAKER_04 33:53

Some some do like and support, but I think people look at you like, well, like you said, well, what's he doing that for? Yeah. 38-year-old geezer. I created a TikTok. I didn't know what TikTok even was. I thought TikTok was for kids. Yeah. So anyway, I what I you know, I took the time to try and learn this course, this short film content course. And um the guy said, You need a TikTok, you need an Instagram, you know, get across all these platforms. So I created a TikTok. And at that point there, I was like, right, now I'm gonna sort of I hadn't wiped my personal Instagram clean, but I was like, right, this is the starting point. So January, I've I feel like is when I'd done it. I started approaching it with a bit of a purpose, not just showing a picture of you know my day out or my little one or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

It was like, right, what's my message?

SPEAKER_04 34:34

What's my message? So that point there, I again I'm just playing, I'm I've got to find out where to put the the camera and the light and whatever. So and I and again it's money, like I never had no money, so I still ain't got no money. So I'm I'm piecing this together as I go. So I'm looking, and the guy says, right, you need to buy a light. So I waited until I got paid the next month, then I bought a light. And then he's like, right, well, you need a microphone. So I was waiting another month to get paid, and then you, you know, like dribs and drabs, but I built a little kit together, and my little kit now I would say is is is pretty decent. And um I'm still figuring out how to use it, but the video that changed everything for me was I've got in the gym and I never even went in the gym to tell that story. Never just just went to the gym, I set the camera up, and I know people want to hear something real. And I I I've I again on my little research phase of social media, I'm seeing negativity. Negativity. Oh, it's constant. Look at my look at my this, look at my that.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

I did that to him, then I did that to him, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:39

And um I just thought, well, do you know what? Let me just say something that's real. Because I was actually that story, I was embarrassed of that story at the time, and I was embarrassed. It was a it was a it was a nothing story. Do you want me embarrassed? What do you mean? Oh, I felt ashamed of that story. I felt ashamed of what I did there.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

You walked away?

SPEAKER_04 35:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Did you?

unknown 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Earts as a man, don't it? But when you but I I said to CJ, I showed that my lad because I have been the lad that didn't walk away, and and and the consequences of that, what it CJ spells out, I've seen, I've done it, it's happened, it's happened to me, I've I've done it to other people. And I thought, what, and I I just looked at my lad and I thought, if this, if this that CJ's just done, because you know, no, no, listen to the dad, did he? So I I I showed him that that uh for that reason, because I thought, I you don't want to happen to my son.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

No.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

So I think it was it was really good. But what uh so it's a so it was a double, a double brave moment then the day you did that and walked away. I'm gonna leave it, lads. And then the day you posted it.

SPEAKER_04 36:41

Yeah, it's just a nothing story for me. Like it wasn't an event in my life that that done anything, didn't change nothing, like it was a nothing, you know. Some wally started on me in a nightclub and I got us out of there. And I felt embarrassed at the time, I felt ashamed. It it hurt me for probably not that long, a couple of hours a day, whatever, and then you move on with your life, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:00

It does fade, it does go, don't it?

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Of course, you know, that embarrassment, anything, you know, embarrassment or you know like you have one on you, yeah. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

You know, they they they they did have one over you uh in a way, but then I like what you said a bit of that story there, which was I think was quite crucial to that story. I don't know if you know. They've probably done it to ten geezers that night. And I think that bit, I don't know if you knew, I think that bit was crucial to it. Yeah, because that makes it makes somebody who does walk away not feel alone that they fucking they've been doing it all night. They didn't.

SPEAKER_04 37:29

That's how I told myself it doesn't matter because as I say, they won't remember me.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

No, they don't remember and that fight they were looking for, they would have found it.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

They probably did have a fight. They found it that night. Well, I would be very surprised if they didn't do that to someone else and someone else and someone else, someone then. But as I say, um and you know the mad thing about that is I was with a group of guys, one of them was a uh tie boxing world champion, another guy has been fighting. I was with a guy a group of guys that are not wallies, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

And you can undo yourself, obviously.

SPEAKER_04 37:58

But even even the the third that so I I laid out three outcomes to that. Can't remember what they were in that video.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

It was one, um I could have hit him, missed, the guy with the bottle hit me, yeah, or I could have hit him, yeah, and certainly he could have cracked his head. I've got a bit in, we got split up, the doorman kicked me headed on the way out. Yeah, yeah, I remember him.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Yeah, there was nothing good, there was no there was no good to come of no go.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Oh, you just sat in a cell.

SPEAKER_04 38:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was a fourth that I didn't say, and that was because of the guys that I was with, and because you know, these guys are not wallies and um they have the capacity to fight. Let's say I I don't know, swing and a miss, one of my mates hits someone and you know does damage, they're gonna go and sit in a jail cell for me. So it wasn't just a decision for me, it was a decision for all of us.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

You know, like what did your mate say after when you walked out?

SPEAKER_04 38:51

Erm they just they they all just said, mate, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Idiots is what it is, don't worry.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

But I I'd really kind of it hurt me. I remember walking down the port after that, I was fuming. But as I say, that nothing good would have come of it, and at hindsight was the best thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

I mean my universe woo-woo world, it was meant to be because that's the post in the end, like leaving the fighting was meant to be because really this is what you're meant to be doing, because you're kind of working in line with yourself. It's all these points in your life, you look back and you go, mm-mm mm-mm.

SPEAKER_04 39:22

No, I and I I agree, I do agree with that.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

How would you have had the story to tell? And there's a story that you told that's gone mad.

SPEAKER_04 39:28

100%. And and so thank you to them lads, isn't it? Yeah, but the the weird thing about that video was it was smarter than I intended it to be. What do you mean? Because I didn't know what I'd done there, right? I'd again I've got a very tiny little knowledge of my little short form content, so I'm gonna set up my camera, I'm gonna tell a random story, and I'm gonna edit it together. And then I'm gonna put a catchy headline at the top, X-Fighter, because this is what the guy said for you to do. You've got a label, you know, you kind of got a it's a bit of a cringy title, but because I don't really the fighting stuff for me is so long ago that I wouldn't really walk around telling people I'm a fighter, because I'm not anymore. But um this you have to put kind of a cringy head to hook the hook head to it. The hook, yeah, yeah. So it said like X Fighter Beef on Nightclub, I can't even remember what it was. X Fighter.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

I can't remember the headline.

SPEAKER_04 40:13

X Fighter on Nightclub beef.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:15

Because people are gonna look at that and go, oh yeah, he's gonna go, oh yeah, I've done this and I've done that, and bum, bum, bum. Yeah. So then people got kind of tricked into like watching that, and then it completely took took a swerve to the other direction, and that's what people liked.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

I think that's what yeah, that was what I think you take it away from yourself again. You are such a humble bloke. I think you're taking it away from yourself again. It's the way you come across, it's your you the way you are, is is is also watchable. It wasn't just the hooks and the bits and the bobs. I was watching, I remember watching it thinking, it comes across well, and then you went freeze, and I was like, oh that's cool. And I carried on watching, do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 40:51

I didn't even mean like I say, it wasn't planned any of that. I don't really plan, I don't to this day, I don't plan a video. Like if I see something and I'm I'm gonna react to the obviously, you know. But other than that, I will just go to the gym and a lot of the time I've got a clue.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Just comes to you. Yeah, I I I'd start training and you still think about from the thing that you bought, do you still think, where's my hook, what's my message?

SPEAKER_04 41:13

Or where a little bit, a little bit. I think, right, well, you've got to, you know, you've got to make the guy I did say one very interesting thing, and he said, uh, it doesn't matter how good the start of your video is, if there's no one there to see, you might have this mad punchline at the end of your story, but if there's no one make it to the end of the video, makes it to the end of the video. So there is an art to that, like, and I'm still learning it now.

SPEAKER_02 41:32

Because I've seen the similar things and and I still don't do it. And I don't know why. I feel like I'm I do some no, I don't. I know because I know what you mean. Like, do this hook, do that hook. And I don't I like doing what you do, just I literally every day I get the camera out and I go uh that and I just speak and and just I just come up with something.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

And I just but really if you do do it the the way that you did that video all the time, I suppose it But I haven't really revisited, I mean the first that I Because your other videos don't do that like Yeah, so they they a few of them that was my thing. I started shadow box I started boxing in a in a in a gym and I started setting the camera.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

That's a visual hook, it's called, isn't it? Yeah, it's called a visual hook.

SPEAKER_04 42:10

And it looks it looks good, you know. And what that shows people is obviously you can fight and and and you've done a bit. Um and then to be telling a story over top of that, I just feel it the the idea in my head was more like um when you're training with someone, you're on the bag next to them, and you're just talking shit. You're like bomb bomb bomb, you're talking, oh mate, uh yeah, and she's moaning, blah, blah, blah, and all that. And that was how the it I wanted it to sort of be. And then um I'd done a few, I'd done a few of them, and then uh it kind of what I started noticing was people just like the realness of it. And it hasn't necessarily got to be me. Oh, we'll go back and do that, hit the bag. Or then what happened was I kind of started branching out, um, and I wanted different backgrounds. I I went to London and I'd I'd I moved around different places, I had Tower Bridge in the background, and I wanted to make it look nice, and I'd tell a little story, and it kind of went on from there. But what what then started happening was like people started resonating with just being honest, and and then and then you'd have even like positivity, like I'm very shy. I'm still to this day, I'm a very shy person. And uh for you to someone to come up to me, and I was get I started to get it where people would come and and and they go, CJ, and I'd be like, Oh right, and they'd be like, Love what you're doing, I'd be like, oh, and I caught that on camera a couple of times, and that is just golden. Because like for me, feel good, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then and then the next level to that was but but so on that level, being recognised for being, you know, just being nice and being good and putting out a good message, yeah. Positivity, you know what I mean? Yeah, I can have a fight, but I don't give a shit about that. I'm I'm I'm here to say, I don't care about that. I'm here to say, be nice to everyone, be good, be a good man, you know what I mean, be a good person. But the next stage of that was. Then I had people start screen grabbing my videos or or filming themselves. The best one, uh the best one, I say brought a tear to my eye, but it made me think, do you know what? That is the bollocks. And it was the guy jumped up off the sofa because I'd done I'd say that was it. I started doing instructional in a little bit of if you've never thrown a punch, this is how you put your feet. I'd done a little three-part series all over London. I like teaching people, I like showing people, and uh I put that out and I said, guys, have a little go. And bless him, some guy, I had a load of people film themselves doing it. Well tag you in. And tag me in. Because that was what I said at the end of the three-part. I said, listen, like, if you've never done this, I want to see you. This isn't for the fighters, this is for the average Joe. The geezer on his sofa in the ad break, watch that video, get up, but put the camera there and show me. And obviously, I will push that out for you. Like, I'll re-tag it, I'll do whatever I can to get, you know, to push that message. And people started sending me videos of them shadow boxing. That's awesome. Yeah, from all over the country. Yeah, yeah, all over the country. And the best one, bless him, uh older fellow, he might have been 50, 60, whatever. He's in his front room and he's jumped up, he's got his pajamas on or whatever. Big lump, you know what I mean? Big geezer. And he's like, he's there, he's doing it and all that. And I looked at that, I thought, ah, this, this is there's something, something's here. Like this is for me. That was not not a turning point, but it's like just the next the next level, likes and shares, all that's lovely. You appreciate the support. But when someone says, No, you inspire me to do that, that's different. Like, that's like whoa. Like purpose, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Purpose. Yeah. And I didn't even realise. I didn't I didn't mean for any of this to happen.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

Like just a normal geezer, like you said, just yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:48

I was a guy that I am asking.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

And shy, I didn't know that about you really, you know, the shyness.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

But I'm having to come out of that to come and do this stuff. I have to, because otherwise, 38 years of creeping away, and even that last few years where I was just in that same repetitive cycle, and I kind of just I all the confidence that I had from fighting's gone. And I've just fell into this, like, right, day job, family man, bum, bum, bum. And uh, which is fine. Like, you know, if you're happy, it's cool. But I just had no buzz about me. I had no, I mean, I don't want to say no purpose because the big the my little one, like you can't, you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Yeah, if you've got kids, you know, there's you don't want to lose yourself identity through your kids. Like, women suffer from it, don't they? They're a mum and they don't know what else they are. Yeah, and women can suffer from it more than men, really. But yeah men as men, it's still in our DNA to to go and hunt or whatever, and that's not replaced. It we should have a purpose, whatever that is. And if it's making people feel good and changing lives, what a purpose to get to have.

SPEAKER_04 46:47

Yeah, yeah. No, I'm I'm very grateful to how this is going.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

Well, did he get that video in the end? How many views has it had? What the guy that done the No, your one, your your one. That one, the one I'm talking about. Oh, the the timeline.

SPEAKER_04 47:00

I think it got a million across I think Instagram and TikTok it got a million. So at the 600k on one, 400 on the other. Last time I looked.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

That's mad, isn't it? Yeah. Did you wake up to that? Like, fuck it, what's going on with my phone? Yeah. It was it like that, was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

Notifications everywhere. Yeah, people just started sharing it, and then the more people that shared it, I'd never seen anything like that. So the more people shared it and commented on it. I don't even know what thousands of likes you've got. I've got like 30,000 likes or whatever. And I'm up until that point getting 20 or 30, you know what I mean? But I'm very grateful to like I put out a post to come here today, but again, I'm just being honest. Like, I'm I'm I'm I mean, we've sat here now and I'm not so nervous now. Yeah, yeah. You're quite nice, and you're lovely, and you know, but on the way here, I'm like, it's a geeze you don't know. He's gonna ask you questions, you're being interviewed. What getting in your own heads? There's gonna be a camera, they're gonna be pressing record. Like, and if that's why I said to you, I haven't really watched any of your previous stuff, because the more I watch of it, the more I'd just be like, you've got to go and do that. You know what I mean? And then I just I'd blow I'd do I'd blow my own head off, I'd do my own head in.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

And then he'd be like, Oh, not coming, I'll call it.

SPEAKER_04 48:11

Yeah, yeah, and you find and that's what I've done for a long time. I'd find the way out. Oh, I can't do it, mate, or bum, bum, bum, you know, like where is But you're not doing this for you.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

I think I'm not doing this for me, and I don't think you're doing this for you. It's for them, it's for everybody else. We're doing it, we're serving. Because people want to know more about you. I want to know more about you, that's why you're here. And you're luckily for me, you said yeah. All the people that follow you and all them sort of things, they all want to see you like this as well, and and and see you talking more and getting to know you more. And that to be honest, you're braver than me because I I have not, people people you might have noticed, guys. I haven't put anything personal about myself all this time. I started with zero and built it up or whatever, and it's going really well. I've not I've not had what you've had yet, I've not had that where that video's gone boom. I've not had that. Mine's been like a build. I I'm not gonna say the numbers because it sounds like I've got ego. But anyway, we're doing all right, but but but I've done it without actually saying anything personal about myself. And that's my next step, if you like, yeah, is is to do that. But but what you've done is really good and brave, and then what that does, it makes people want more of you. Do you see what I mean? And they want to know more about you, and and it that that is the key to social media. I know it is. You don't you I don't know if that was on your thing that the the program that you did that people want to know about the person or whatever, but it is a thing, and then I've resisted it, and I still might, yeah, I don't know, but but but that's why, and and I think what you're doing now is is really locking down just what a nice humble you're representing us all, all the blokes that have that that want to change and do something different, all the blokes that have that are trying to just do the best, all the blokes that have done month to month. Yes, that's what you're representing, and don't you think that's that's massive? And it's not giving the responsibility to all on your shoulders, but it's a good yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:56

As I said, I didn't I haven't got like someone might say to me, What's your message? I I don't know, right? But all I know is people are resonating with real. And for me to sit here and say to you, you know, I was desperately unhappy doing a night shift jobs that I didn't want to do, bomb bomb bomb, living month to month, week to week, and then something just said just have a go at that. Just have a go at that, and then that's now morphed into you know, this like I I I set up a camera and done some boxing, told a story, and that's now morphed into people reaching out to me and taking inspiration from that, and um it's crazy. Do you have many young young people message or do you know? Yeah, you do, yeah, young guys. In that catchment of 21, 22. No, I mean younger.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

No, I mean the the strict the lads that are on the streets still, if you like. You know, like you know what you're like when you're in a city between 14 and 16, 17 is quite that crucial.

SPEAKER_04 50:49

I can't off the top of my head I can't remember like young, young, but I've had like guys say, listen, I'm 20 years old, bomb bum bomb, struggling, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what I'm a I'm a uh one, yeah, one actually rings a bell. I'm struggling, I am a labourer on a building site, getting treated like shit, bum, bum, bum. Only the other day, some uh 20 year old whatever said to me, He said, What am I supposed to do? On your inbox. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you say? He's a bricklayer. I said, mate, stick to it. Stick to it. You've got to be happy, you know, like but at the same time, you've got to do you've got to graft and you've got to be. My biggest regret is, I told this story before. My biggest regret is uh I left school and I uh went to plumbing college. I might have been might have been like 16 or whatever. I must have been to leave school 16.

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Yeah, yeah, 15, 16, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:36

First thing I did went to plumbing college. And I think I lasted a month or two or whatever. And uh I left. I left to go and cook chickens in Morrisons.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

Because it earned a bit a few earned a few quid an hour.

SPEAKER_04 51:50

Minimum wage.

SPEAKER_02 51:51

And uh loads of people have done that.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

And can you imagine if I'd stuck to plumbing or I'm 38 now, 22 years ago, I'd have my own firm, I'd have a fleet of vans, I'd have, you know.

SPEAKER_03 52:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Anyone I noticed a plumber have done alright. I've done alright.

SPEAKER_03 52:05

Yeah, they have, yeah. Gas engineer, whatever, bum, bum, bum.

SPEAKER_04 52:09

So um that was probably one of I I don't regret much, to be honest, but that was one of my only regrets, really.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

See, I go the same way, like with the with the trigger points. I think if that happened, people you you're here for this to help people, aren't you? Really? Yeah. But unfortunately, you know, when you try to help people in that world, there's not an earner in it. No, that's the thing, innit? Is it there doesn't seem to be an earner.

unknown 52:32

No.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Because like you know, you were saying when you you know obviously people that look at your stuff now and then they've looked, the algorithm will hit them with more of your stuff. Yeah, and that's a positive stream they're getting now because it's their reality they've created through social media, and like you but you see stuff like the Manosphere stuff, yeah. And that's why I was asking about if it was the younger lot, I can say when I showed my lad he's 16, because I wanted him to hear that message from someone not his dad, the one that you did. Yeah, and and this is why I think the ban that's just come in under 16-year-olds on social media, isn't it? I don't know that. Yeah, under 16 banned from social media.

SPEAKER_04 53:04

Oh right.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Uh, from I think it's from December. I don't know if that'll change because Keir Starmer's just left. Now I know the time frame of the interview. Um, but that's a shame because if they were looking at positive content, it'd help them, wouldn't it? But what's happening, I suppose, everyone's looking at the manosphere stuff. Have you got a view on the manosphere side of things as a proper bloke?

SPEAKER_04 53:21

To be honest, uh I I watched a little bits and bobs, I fast forwarded through it. Um so I can't really even I I can't comment on all of it from what I saw.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Not the documentary, I don't mean forget the documentary, I mean that ilk of people giving that message to them young lads, I suppose. Do you see what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 53:38

Yeah. Um so the one that sticks to mind is HS, HS Tiki Talkie. Um and I don't even want to say names because then obviously that can get used, and it's like I'm using their names for views when that's when it's not what what I want to do. But that's the one that I watched it because I've seen him and I followed him for a long time. I watched him when he was a fitness guy and he morphed into this other sort of Oh, is that actually I didn't know that? He was I think that's how yeah, he was he was into the fitness stuff and uh he used to sell programs or whatever back in the day and he was in great shape. And uh I think that's how him and that Ed Matthews started. Could be wrong. Anyway, so I followed him for a long time, um, and then I think so. I can't look, I I can't knock these young lads to go and get money. And that's what they're doing. They are going to be.

SPEAKER_02 54:25

We've all done that month-to-month thing, and just what's it all about?

SPEAKER_04 54:28

Yes, so I cannot come across as the kid that sorry, the kid 38-year-old. I cannot come across as the guy sitting on the internet, you know, knocking these young guns that are out there earning money, because I ain't. Go get your money. But do I agree with the way they're doing it? We've all been young, we've all been lads. You do look at things different when you have your own kid. I think, particularly a daughter. I've got a daughter, and I agree. Particularly a daughter, because now I cannot look at any of this stuff through through the lens of not being a dad to a daughter. So if you asked me back in the day, I might have said, yeah, they're doing a thing, they're earning money, bomb, bum, bum. But now, you know, I can only comment on where I am now, and that is it hurts me a lot of the stuff I see them doing, you know. I look at it and I think, oh god, it's just it's not good for what the young ones want to be seeing. And the the the the algorithm now, they they you know, they live stream and they clip a hundred clips off of an eight-hour stream, and you know, it goes out to the algorithm and a lot of it is a lot of it's shit, a lot of it's just rubbish. But some of it is just like some of it's really not what I think young ones young guys should be seeing. Um but again, guys have always gone and always had fun and got drunk on lads' holidays and had fights, but now it's being served up to you on this on this form, you know, like and it's just always seeing. So I don't think I don't think they're doing anything different, but now it's just they're putting it out there, and um I can't look at it as any other thing apart from being a dad to a daughter, and that is I could be my daughter in 15 years, you know what I mean? And it's like, oh God that would hurt, wouldn't it? I know that would hurt. Oh, you know, they're pulling birds on you know the kids, the lads holiday, and then there's auntie, and I think.

SPEAKER_02 56:13

You think the girls will see it? How do girls still fall for it? I know. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 56:16

Some girls might even go for that because of who they are, and they want to boost their self on the platform.

SPEAKER_02 56:21

And very shallow, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 56:24

It is, and I do you know I honestly think guys like the one we mentioned will probably look back when they have kids and go, but then they but then they'll be doing it in their mansions, you know. They don't give a shit, I suppose, but they might look back and go, Oh, do you know what?

SPEAKER_02 56:38

Or they'll or their time's dead, and they'll pretend to give a shit to give themselves a boost back in the limelight. You wouldn't even know if they were telling the truth on that, would you?

SPEAKER_04 56:45

But it revived, it comes back to that point that I said, you you you look at things different when you have kids, and maybe good on them, they're out there earning their money now. I don't agree with a lot of you know the way they're doing it. I think a lot of it's really toxic. And that's another little thing that people started. I never, never again. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what I'm doing here, and I don't hear but I didn't know what I was uh I didn't know what I was doing even more when I first started this. And then you get people start mentioned start saying, Oh, this guy's like the fighting Jimskin, you know, like and that's a nice thing because Jimskin's a positive guy's a positive guy, yeah. And I love that, you know what I mean? And he's in a in a sea of a message that I was getting a lot, in a sea of just guys being out there flashy, toxicity, toxic, yeah, yeah. Bomb bomb bomb. He was changing the game a little bit. What done him a massive favour was that guy starting on him at that event.

SPEAKER_02 57:36

Yeah. Did he handle that well? He really handled that well, didn't he?

SPEAKER_04 57:39

I follow that other guy. I I don't know if yeah, I don't know if it was alcohol or whatever, because he's actually he oh he can hold his hands up, he's actually quite a decent fighter, that guy. So I don't know why he did what he did, but anyway, it's been it's been argued back was a fool.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

People comment on your thingy, yeah. Really, they want everyone wants to be seen. And if they're not being seen by their children, their family, their friends in some way, and there's a bit bit missing in them, they want to be seen, they're using other person's light, if you like, to be seen. Yeah. So that way I saw that was he he wanted to be seen and he's just took advantage and tried to get on camera.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

Maybe, maybe, but I guess I know he'd done apologies and he and he seems like a cool guy.

SPEAKER_02 58:14

He does, and I thought that after I thought, do you know what? You seem all right.

SPEAKER_04 58:16

Yeah, I followed him for a long time before that when he was. Because it's got scars. Scars, because he thought another guy followed Bash, they had a they had a I think they had a fight, and I followed him since then. But anyway, he I guess he just done it, he might have had a few drinks and he'd done it, and he probably didn't realise a backlash because he I think he got a lot of backlashes for that.

SPEAKER_02 58:33

Yeah, or to do a video about it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is again, this is and I and another thing, like I don't mention people's names because I don't want him to now see this. Because this is what this is the game that we're stepping into here, the social media thing is it's like you mention someone's name, they'll come for you. You know, like they might pop up and go, Oh, you say my neighbor, but but I am here to say I have got you're never gonna get beef off of me.

SPEAKER_03 58:57

Yeah, I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:59

And you're never gonna get negative anything negative. I I'm not saying anything negative about anyone, you know what I mean? Like I just said, I mentioned that guy's name, but I followed him for a long time before that, and I actually quite liked him. He'd done a silly thing, is what it is, you know what I mean. He might have had a few drinks, we've all done it.

SPEAKER_02 59:11

We spoke off camera about Big Stacks, didn't we? And I I was saying he went, Yeah, I think he's alright. Yeah, big stacks.

SPEAKER_04 59:17

Big Stacks, again, like Big Stacks is another one that gets a lot of stick. But he's playing the game, he's playing the game, and you can't knock him for making his money. Um, but as we said, when I I got asked about this before, the I just I just don't think there's a long game in that because you get someone come to you that wants to bring you grief. And I I want an easy life. I want to walk around, I want to be nice to everyone. Like, I want people to be nice to me. Yeah, I don't want to walk into it.

SPEAKER_02 59:41

Basically, we'd be boring trying to have beef with you, it'd be like, yeah, Sam, whatever, mate.

SPEAKER_04 59:46

I'm stepping into this social media. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm stepping into this social media world where like people are mate, they might pop up and go, Oh, you know, bum blah blah blah. And I'm gonna go, yeah, alright, mate, you win. Like, yeah, cool. Like, you're not gonna get anything, yeah. You're just not gonna get an argument from me, you're not gonna get beef from me. There's nothing, you're not gonna get clippable like ag from me, because there is none. Like, I I'm not here for that. I'm here to put out a bit of good. Not not I'm not here to, you know, start mentioning names and beefing with people. I've I've got nothing to beef about. Like, I'm cheering everyone on. I'm your cheerleader, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:20

People make mistakes sometimes, and we're only human, you know. Like, and you know, cameras can get put in your face, and you you're under the the the the the moment, and unfortunately, about that, like that moment is then clipped and shared a million times, and then you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:33

People judge, because people judge.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:35

You're the baddie, aren't you? Yeah, you're the baddie. But um, it is a funny old world that you know this this it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:41

It is a funny. We're both new to it, aren't we? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:43

Yours has been much more of a blow up than mine, but it's a funny, it's a funny old world, this social media thing. And I yet, touch wood, I've yet to have anyone try and come to me. Oh, I'll tell you what I have had. Let me get some water. Yeah. Oh dry mouth. Um what I have had is uh because I was doing I I I I really should get back to them, but they're just so time consuming, and I kept ballsing them up, and that is live streams. I was live streaming, I was doing it once, twice a week. I was doing it on TikTok, and I was live streaming once, twice a week, and I would go to a lovely little location in London, Tower Bridge, you know, wherever Blackheath, wherever, beautiful, at 5-ish a m. So even for that, you've got to be up quarter to four, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like to ride there and whatever. So they're time consuming, and I stopped them because I kept having problems with the equipment I was using, and I would put out a stream and I'd not have no audio. So it happened every time, you know, you spend an hour doing something, I've jumped around and no one can even hear you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Oh, you're joking.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:39

So I stopped doing them in the end, but you know what? One thing goes back to the haters. Every single one, you'd have people hating on you. Every like this guy's up at they would, I mean, they would literally be like, This guy's up at 6am jumping around like an idiot, like in public, what's he doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:55

Like and they can't get the advantage that they've got up at 6am, comments on someone's TikTok. It's like it's fun, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:01:59

You would have, you would have a guy just because I'm not tech, I'm not that tech savvy with it. So you would really you can have someone sit there and like ban them from your chat or whatever, but I'd just have people just take the whole chat over because I'm shadow boxing, I'm doing my thing. I ain't got time to regulate or mm whatever it moderate a chat. So you'd just let these guys run riot, but it I'd look back and I'd be like, you know, because I'd it get to a point where they bother you. Uh about bother me, but the ones that make me laugh is it's that one where you would get the guy. The reason I've got onto this topic was you would get the guy that say, I know where that is, I'll be there in 15 minutes. That but that makes me laugh. No, of course they didn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

Oh, in that way, not like to help but to join in. You're joking.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

You get every single live stream you would do someone go, oh, that's that's 15 minutes from me, I'll be there. Watch. Why? And I'd I'd I'd read it, but I'm I'm in the I'm in the middle of, you know, I'm sweating, I'm training, I've got I'm out of breath, I'm trying not to blow because I'm not that fit. So I'm like, and I'm reading the chat, but I I'm not quick enough to distinguish the bad from the good. So I'm trying to read out everything, then I'm reading out the negative, and then I'm realising guys, and then I've been. I'd be like, mate, stay in bed, chill out, relax. You know what I mean? Like what I'm there's no fight here for you. If you turned up, I'd laugh. Alright, mate, have a good day. You know what I mean? Like make you look stupid. To touch wood, I haven't had that. But the more you step into this world of social media and stuff, you might you might have someone, you know, come. And I don't, I'm not after that. Like, I don't want that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

But if you've got to defend yourself, you've got to defend yourself, haven't you?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:30

You have, but uh I want an easy life, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:33

I I don't So you're gonna go on a live again, do you think?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:35

Or no, no, no, no. The reason I stopped doing the lives was they're so time consuming and I can't guarantee the the content. So at the end of your live, they you can you can pull it off and put it on, uh you can save it, you can download it. So I'd pull off the hour live stream or whatever it was, five minutes in, mic cuts off. I'm like, so I've just done, yeah. So like you might it audio is such an important part of it, people can't even hear you, they're just it's just me jumping around in a park like doing a bit of shadow boxing, you know, like the time in 15 minutes, just do my editing. Just getting slated basically. But um I kind of knocked them on the head. But uh the live streaming thing is something that does interest me. Um and I would love to, I would love to be. Yeah, you know what? I was getting like I think the best one I ever done, I got like 5,000 people. Was it 5,000 likes or 50? It might have been 5k likes, which for me Who's up at that time? Well, people getting up going to work or whatever, whatever, or they're still up from the night before. Yeah, but I mean you get the old person on there, like but um yeah, I just I don't understand that. Do you um you so Instagram and TikTok you do? I do Instagram, TikTok, Instagram not YouTube or Facebook, or I've got a I've got the YouTube, so every video I'd put out, I'd go Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. YouTube is a bit of a nightmare. Everything, every third video I'd put out, they'd just pull it down. So I stopped because I put What ban it? They they'd either they'd like it say like against community company. Oh, because the music in the background. I thought I'm putting out all these videos, I may as well fire it back up again. I got a Facebook the other day um off the back of someone just saying, look, you you're putting out this content.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:15

And Instagram will post it to Facebook for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:17

And that when I realised it's no more ag, that's what I've done. So I synced it all up, I created a new Facebook. So I go across, but the only one I really use, the only one anyone really like interacts with me on is Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:28

And do you do you in your head have a uh right? I post every day. I do twice a day, I do this. What's your thought? What what do you do?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:35

Once a day, twice a day? I try and do like one thing a day, but I don't want to sacrifice it's hard to do that, it's not easy.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:42

Like I was gonna say the same thing. That's what I was getting at. I mean, I'm lucky in a way, because I've got you guys, so I do a clip from you guys in the morning, which I guess is current, a clip at night, and the middle of the day I do what you do. Um I'll just talk about that. So there's my three a day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They they my clips are given to me, aren't they? So you ain't got to think about them. I just put a clip out.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:01

The experts say you should be doing three a day, right? But I've got a life. You know, I pick my little one up at three o'clock.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

What I'm saying is it is hard work to go, oh fucking internet's being slow. I need to upload that. And then I need to copy and paste that over there.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:14

And taking the camera to the gym, I set it up, I get the light right, I'll do a little video.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

Someone dropped or say something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:21

But and then and there's that as well. Like I I I ain't um if someone can say there's a boxing gym in my gym, but if someone's come and use it, I'll get out of the way. Like I can't, I I'm not very good. That's why when you said leave that door open earlier, I can't leave that door open and talk freely. Because if there's someone sat there.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

I'm the same.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:38

I cannot.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:39

I wanted it shut as well. I wanted it shut as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:41

Yeah, I can't. I I I don't know. I don't know what it is. Coming here on the train, I've got my little camera, I've got in a carriage where there's no one. I thought, right, lovely. Sat in there. It's guaranteed in it. It's guaranteed. You love it. I'm counting down the minutes. In it weird there with it every single time, isn't it? The minute someone's run for the train, jumped on, sat right next to me. I'm like, right, well, I can't talk now.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

It's not, it's just I cannot do it. So I've grabbed my stuff up once we left, and I went right down the end and I and I've done a little bit on the end. But so that's the same with the gym. Like, I don't want to be uh getting in people's way, or uh so I'm very much like so that slows you up because there's only one boxing ring or one boxing bag. So if someone wants to come use it, I just go go on, mate, jump on that, I'll I'll I'll come use it after. But that's an hour or two. You get home, editing. I don't know how to edit, so I'm learning as I go. Yeah, I'm gonna go. So I'm using yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm learning as I go. That's a slow process. Yeah, takes another hour. So to put out a good looking video takes three hours minimum.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:41

So then on top of your work, you know, little one, life, life life because life life as well, there's additional things that could happen, couldn't they? You know, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:49

So it ain't all got to be as in depth as that. Sometimes you can just, you know, if something speaks to your or you know, you think, oh, I want to talk about that, and then you can just go bang, and that's not so bad. That might only take an hour because you still gotta edit it and upload it and boom boom boom. But it's not easy. So to put out three pieces a day, like real good, you know, quality, it's not nine hours work.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:11

It's mad, isn't it? And it's and then not to get no money, which is mad as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

Well, I've got 50p.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

Really? Um and what what I so have you I can't remember what earlier did we say or touch on it, because I think you said have you now found like a bit of a north star and a direction? So, like, for example, my thing is self-awareness. So everything I try and do, a post, is gonna be about human behaviour, self-awareness, getting people thinking, getting people to look at themselves, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:38

That's my thing, if you like. So have you got a thing? Have you decided? Are you trying to I don't want it to be like um have you got a yeah, do you know what I mean? Have I explained it properly?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:48

I don't want it to be like the thing I've said most on this podcast, but I genuinely don't have a clue. Like, I don't know. Again, I am stumbling my way through this and people are resonating with it. I haven't got a plan. I I I haven't got a plan, I haven't got a business plan. Like, we mentioned it earlier, you said about how people approach you for like this. I've turned down loads of free stuff, I don't want to do it, I've turned down some paid stuff that I just don't want to be associated with. I'm not really here for the freebies, you know. Like this has morphed into something very positive, and I'm just gonna keep running with um running with that and see where it goes. Because as I say, I haven't really got a direction of um, I haven't really got a direction of where this goes. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

You're clearly helping mainly men, yeah, aren't you? I suppose at the moment. So that's that is that. I suppose as a general umbrella, if you had to give yourself some sort of subject, it's it's helping men. That's a very broad subject. Well, yeah, mine's broad, self-awareness is broad, but it's good to be broad because it means your subjects uh you're not repeating yourself because you've got quite a few things you can discuss. Yeah. So I would get I'm not putting words in your mouth, I would say helping men.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:57

We touched on it earlier to to inspire a man who might be a bit out of shape to get up off the sofa in the ad break and throw a few punches and jump around and film it and send it out. And and for me to then receive that and push that out to you know with the people that I've got following me, and then for him to get a load of love, that that's better than likes or you know, views or anything. That and that's only something I'm finding out, you know, as I go. And um that's be helping them in another way as well, though, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:26

Helping men in other ways, like you say, the you know, the resonate the resonating with you of this it, I'm here just to go to work, come back, have no dough left, and die. Do you know what I mean? Like that'll resonate with everybody, most 90% of men in the country, because I think it's there's the 1% of the population that earn what they earn. Yeah, I think the other 99 are going to be near you what you were saying. So that that's a resonation. So it's it's it's helping me in every way. I mean, I do believe though, men and and people, if we're on a self-winner's journey, I've always said it starts with fitness and health. I think it's hard to build. That's the absolute foundation of everything is just getting a good basis of a fitness and health. Yeah. And then you can build from there. It's hard to do it if you haven't got that minimum, if you like. And I'm not talking Olympians, I'm just talking about, like you say, like you said, just a basic. If that bloke did that every day, he would start noticing it after a bit, wouldn't he? Like, actually, do you know what? I've done that a bit quicker or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:20

And you just feel like you said, it starts from there. And if you feel shit about yourself, you're gonna walk around just feeling like shit, aren't you? So um, I yeah, I don't know what the messages I'm trying to put out there, but all I know is I'm very grateful for the support that you know and the feedback that I'm getting. Touching upon what you said about loads of guys out there are unhappy. The messages that I'm getting off people is I'm I am in exactly the same thing you said. I'm stuck doing a job, what am I supposed to do? Blah blah blah blah. And I haven't got the answer. Like, I'm just telling people that I'm there with you. Like, I don't know, I don't know what you are supposed to do. Uh do you know? I got the video I'd done the other day, a video I'd done a random video the other day. I had a chat with my mate, and I just stuck out a video, and I didn't mean for it to do so no I say do so well, but I didn't think it had create such an argument, a stir. And that was it's a little bit to what we were saying about the processes we're told you leave school, you're meant to get a job, you're meant to get a mortgage. You pay it off 30 years and then you die.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:16

Like it is that though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

It is that try and have some of the fun in between though, won't you, before you go? Wonderful. Yeah, like cheers, mate. Yeah, we'll do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:25

I've done a video randomly the other day and I was like, mortgage, I can't remember what it was something about mortgage.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:30

Mortgage and renting. Yeah. I did see it, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:32

Mortgage not my I started the video by saying this is not my specialist topic by any way, shape, or form, by the way. It was just a chat that I'd have with my mate, and I just put it out there, and and people, my god, I it got like thousands of comments, argument, backwards and forwards, because I think people took it as a personal attack on their life decision to go to work and have a mortgage, which it isn't. It's not, it's not at all you, isn't it? So I'm saying that you get stuffed whether you're a mortgage, whether you got rent, mortgage, landlord. This country will stuff you either way, like whichever way you're turning. I've been all of those things and felt pain along the way somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:07

So I wasn't personally attacking people with mortgages, but I generally imagine being that sensitive that you think you've been personally attacked about a mortgage.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:14

I was getting, yeah. It's mad, isn't it? Yeah, oh what what are you supposed to do? Pay someone else's mortgage for 50 years. I'm getting them comments today. I got one on the train on the way up a week or two later on a fucking people. Yeah. That guy wants to tell me about my mortgage. Who's he to tell me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I can't I can't stress enough. I weren't digging at anyone. It was just an off-the-cuff thing. Like, I'm trying to say we get stuffed whichever way we're turning up. And I was trying to say life is easy. I was trying to say that there is more to life than paying a mortgage for 30 years and dying. That is all I was trying to say. There is more to life than that, yeah. Before anyone, like, you know, hangs me. That's all, but more power to you if that's what you've chosen to go and do. But I am saying that there's for me, I don't think that's the way we're supposed to go anymore. I can't, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:05

I think there's a collective feel. I think you've tapping into a collective conscience because unfortunately, though, that's where the politics get hold of people who feel like that, and they go, Oh, ignore that life you've got. Look, look how angry you should be because of this. Ignore that life you've got. Shouldn't you be angry at them? Shouldn't you be angry at doing this? And then it's a distraction from the fact that you're just gonna work and die. Basically, in it.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:28

The funniest thing about those comments is um I I've put that out as literally just you know, uh, an off the cuff. I'm not really I'm not really thinking too deep into it. The comments that then they kind of want to hijack your your oh so oh so you're a racist. Or oh you're yeah, what logical so you're this racist. That's a jump that is oh so you're part of this party, or but some people, some of the how did they to the least political person? I don't watch the news. Like you're talking to the wrong person. I don't someone told me the the the Prime Minister or whatever quit yesterday. I had no fucking idea. Someone told me that someone told me that like a Prime Minister, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:06

How's it going for me with my rent? No, but mortgage or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:09

I find that people are so angry about this stuff, I just stay out of it. It might be a very selfish way to look at things. I focus on well, missus, my mum, my little one, earning a few quid for work, paying, you know, the bills we have to pay. Whatever goes on outside that, because people, you know, backwards and forwards, ah, and they and they'll go on protests and this and that, which you want to stick up for, you know, what you believe in f fair play to you, but I ain't got fucking time. I'm trying to, I'm trying to make a few quid, I'm trying to do something. Like I need to, I'm stuck where I am. I've got to get us out of the shit first before I worry about what's going on outside. And I know people will say, oh, it is affecting you, it is affecting you, everyone says that. It is affecting. Don't feel like it is, because I'm I'm concentrating on what I can focus on, concentrate sorry, what's immediately around me and what I can change. And all of that, getting hyped up about all this and that, because let's have it right, the media feeds you stuff, whatever way you want to look at it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:10

From somewhere else above them and all that. The media will feed you and I don't watch it.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:16

Cause I don't think we'll really know what's going on behind the scenes anyway. What you're hearing in the news, I don't think. I don't know, there might be some, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:24

Well, I think COVID opened up a load of people's eyes to the to the blatant propaganda that Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:30

100%.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:31

And I think people have realised that sometimes, tread carefully here, but sometimes the government might not know what they're fucking doing. In it. Simple as that. They're just keeping it. I don't want to swear. I don't want to swear.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:44

But it's true, and they waste our money anyway. If they weren't wasting it on that, they'd be wasting it on something else. They can't spend our money properly, they're not efficient and they're all on backhanders. What can we do?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:53

The problem is you start talking about this stuff and you're going into realms that I know nothing about because I don't I don't learn, I don't choose to take up the space in my head with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

We could read a load of books and try and learn about it, and we still won't know what was going on.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:05

Yeah, exactly. So people get so angry about you know the news and the headlines, and there is some terrible things going on. There really is, but I just focus on my little bubble. And if you want to call me selfish, maybe I am selfish. Yeah, but I'm focusing on me and my daughter and my missus and getting us out of the brown stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:23

And and the only thing that that I think I used to be, I still I read up and I like to know what's going on. I actually do it so I'm aware of what people are being fed. I like to think what so I can gauge what their opinion is going to be because they're it people suffer from having their own opinion. Yeah. So it's called cognitive dissidence. So they're just being told that one thing. See, COVID's the great example, so then they just believe everything. They can't think for themselves, they can't look at their own facts, find their own information or whatever. But one thing I think we all feel, um whether you're political or not, is I'm I'm lucky that I'm not in it in a city anymore. But them in a city just don't feel safe. They just don't feel safe, and that that that that does affect our daughters, our sons, and those sort of things. So that's the only thing, it just doesn't seem to be that feeling of safety in in in cities.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:10

I told you where I I'm based and what I'm doing, um I stand in central London a lot of the time uh through the night. And um after 10 30 when the theatres kick out and everyone goes home, it's the Wild West.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:29

Really that bad. The Wild West. Where are the police?

SPEAKER_04 1:18:33

There they are. There they are, they're floating about, you see them chasing people sometimes and all that. They are, they are, you know. Um but I don't know, where uh just after a certain time, you do not want to be walking across places like Leicester Square.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:47

Would you want your daughter walking across there? That was a big no that was a big no one.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:53

That was a big no, wallet. This is this is where she's not gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:58

No, I need to get out. I need to get out, and you know, I I can't, I can't, she's only young, so at the moment I can keep her inside of our bubble, but in five or ten years' time she's gonna be stepping outside that bubble, and I can't be in London. I could I just couldn't. It's not happening. My love, I I've born and bred London. Like I've moved around here and there, but I had I've loved London. Like I would travel when I did and live in London, I would travel up in in the afternoon just to just to be in London.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:27

It's got a buzz, I think London.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:29

Yeah, just to sit there somewhere nice in an area that I never had no money, but I'd go walk around Mayfair, look at the nice cars or you know what I mean? Just walk around somewhere nice and absorb it. Pretend that I was meant to be there, you know what I mean? Like just take it in, yeah. But even that, having a kid changes the way you you're thinking, and um London, it's just I've lost all of that now. I've lost all of that. Like, and I'm not saying London, there was probably always knife crime, there was probably always you know bad things happening, people getting mugged and whatnot and whatnot. But there certainly is a sense now of like it it's just dangerous. You can't be wandering around. You you couldn't you couldn't put a watch on and leave point A at 11 30 at night, walk across Leicester Square to go to point B. And um I I don't want to say every time someone would approach you, but you would be on someone's radar. No doubt about it. Because you've only got to stand and you're looking around, you're watching, and you'll have people like spotters and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that that's you know, that's our tourist hot hotspot. That's that you know, London's tourist hotspot.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:41

Someone's whole job is just to go green jacket, black hat, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:44

And there's some terrible stories, you know. You get people working in restaurants, and there was one in the city recently, uh guy I think I don't know if it was the security or what, but he um phone phoned ahead, someone in here's got a watch on, they came out, the guy put up a fight and they killed him. Fake watch. Are you joking? Killed him for a fake watch. So you know, uh I don't know what what what what it's coming to.

unknown 1:21:09

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:10

I think that I think there's no my personal opinion that the punishments aren't strong enough, and people just feel like they can do what they want. And and there's these daft things where people are getting arrested for social media or whatever, and and they're going to prison for it, and then you think, well, hey, but he's just been let off for that, and it doesn't make any sense like you've been gaslit. How can they go to prison for that? But that just done that to a child and he's walking free, and it just it like gaslits the nation because we can all see that just doesn't make any sense in anyone's world. That's gotta be more serious than that, it's because it's gotta be. Yeah. It's a child, it's gotta be more serious. Whatever you've done, it's to a child. So that is definitely more serious than what they've put out on there.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:44

It's a I suppose it's a slippery slope, it's a fine line because so you're so would you say that you would want to see, let's say, kid gets caught on lesser square with a knife? What's his punishment in a minute? I mean, they get caught, I suppose, if it's a second-first offence. I don't know, but I'm just guessing, do they go straight to jail? I don't know. Are you saying that you would want to see that person go straight to jail? Is that what I'm asking you? That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:07

Yeah, I think that's a great I think that's a great point. I know where you're going with it straight away. Because his life's ended and he and he's and he's probably just doing something stupid that day. You don't know, do you? I look because I that's where you're going. I don't know. I see.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:16

I'm on both sides of this fence here, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:18

I I don't know. I don't know is the answer now. Are you making me backtrack? And I think I am backtracking because I is it police presence? I don't know, but someone's got to what is the answer?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:27

I don't know. But all I know is on one hand, people say, Oh, police need to be tougher. I'd want to see them, you know, cracking down on these people. On the other hand, the second the old bill do something, everyone's up in arms. Oh, you can't do that, and bum, bum, bum, bum. So they're probably in a very hard spot anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:45

I suppose it's gonna be hard, I'd say, you know what, for the benefit of the community and going forward, yeah, I'd say what, some people need to be sacrificed to say, this is what happens if you carry a knife. So, yeah, you 15, you 1,500 people across England, because that's what they did with the social media. Yeah. They went, you're gonna be, you're gonna have two years in prison, so nobody else does it, you're gonna be our sacrificial goat. So they're willing to do it for that. So are they willing to do it for someone carrying a knife and go, You're the sacrificial goat now, you're getting you're getting you know, big bird, you're getting big bird. And everyone goes, Oh shit, gets rid of the knives. Maybe that is the answer for the for the sake of the communities.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:17

Anyone with some common sense, that whole putting people in prison for social media. I mean, I don't again, I don't even know the stories. I'll hear bits and Bob Swartz was talked about. That's that's mental. It's insane when, as you say, when you compare someone's like that sentence to someone that's actually been caught doing something bad, you know, beating someone up or boom boom boom. You the the two aren't comparable, there's just no common sense there. But I'm I'm on the fence here because you know, you'd want to see I don't know, I was raised with very uh strict rules, and if I've done something wrong, I was punished. Like I got a whack round the head or whatever, you know what I mean? Like I was punished by your dad, not your mum. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And sometimes you can't. No, she whacked me a few times, but sometimes, you know, you almost want to see people not take a bashing, but you want to see people learn a lesson because you think you're disrespectful, fucker. You know what I mean? Like, you obviously not scared of nothing. You need to be taught a lesson.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:15

And communities should do it if the parents can't, is the is that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But on the flip side to that, I'll You can't have it lawless either, can you?

SPEAKER_04 1:24:24

You can't have it lawless. Yeah, it's a right odd spot. I I don't know the answer really. Um I'm eat I'm neither side. I all I know is I was raised with some quite heavy rules and punishments and didn't do me no harm. I'm I mean I'm I'm a bit messed up. But but uh uh uh it taught me respect, it taught me manners, it taught me when to keep my mouth shut. And there is a lot of people out there now that obviously are not scared of anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:51

I know it's mad, isn't it? They're not even scared of going to prison, to be honest. I said prison, they're not even that bothered.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:55

I'd be scared to go to prison, I'd never want to go to prison.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:57

And I don't want to go, but I don't think they're scared, scared of it, are they?

SPEAKER_04 1:25:01

No, no, no, and like yeah, no, you're not gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:02

Oh, my mates in there, and I get to go gym and I'm just gonna go to the screen.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:04

Yeah, I guess so, yeah, because there must be a reason why people keep re-offending, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:08

But um Or they lost skin and they don't know else how else to do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:12

Exactly, exactly. And it and as you said, skint could be the other one. They need money and they've got to go and do what they gotta do, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:19

It's a tough one, isn't it? It's a tough one. Looping it back, so we're not going that down that road too far. Looping it back. Um boxing is a way out for these kids. It's a way to outlet, it's a way for them to go, isn't it? Boxing. Me and my mates or MMAs or whatever, you know, sport, sport I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:34

Yeah, so me and my mates, we were relatively um when I look back and I think about what we did and we were relatively well behaved, and that all came from fighting. Most of my mates who I had a very small group of friends, but we were all trained and we all fought. Boxing or tie boxing.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:51

So you're not out on the streets and you're not we were never.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:53

We were never, no. Oh well, I mean, you fast for uh sorry, you rewind further than that. My dad, my mum and dad weren't I weren't allowed out. But my I was it was quite a strict upbringing I had, so I wasn't, you know, out in the park and until probably I don't know, 16 or whatever. I I my mum and dad kept me kind of um busy. I was, you know, training, fighting, whatever. Not at that age, but training, training, training. Fast forward a few years and you get to 18 and 19s and 20s, and um my mates went out and I might tag along with them, but I didn't drink until I was about 30. Never drank through my 20s. No way. At all. At all. I might have had I might have had a a a pina colada on a on a mum and dad holiday, they go taste that and I go, oh no, it's disgusting. No way.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:36

But so it's that's a rare thing though, isn't it? Yeah, so I I never drunk. You're aware of how wet You're aware of how rare that is, aren't you? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:43

I never drank, but my mates did, so I was always kind of like looking, not looking after them, they needed looking after, they didn't, but like I was the cab, I was the cabbie, I was driving them and Yeah, come on, mate.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Keeping them out of trouble, keeping them out of trouble.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:56

But yeah, so um I I didn't drink, and I and as I say, I really was kind of focused on training and and and whatever. Get to I don't know, late 20s, 28, 29, 30, somewhere, somewhere about there, not the exact date, and I discovered how much fun alcohol was.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:14

Hang on a minute, this ties in with the you're stopping boxing at 30. Didn't it? A little bit. I asked you what was happening in your life at the time. Yeah, a little bit, yeah. So you found you found a new life there, you've been let off your leash a bit of you? Yep. Do you reckon that affected it then?

SPEAKER_04 1:27:27

Possibly. Um I found I found there was more to life than getting hit, as in training every day and struggling every day.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:34

Yeah, the buzz. Was you single?

SPEAKER_04 1:27:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:36

Yeah. Yes, you had the the buzz of chatting up birds, having a few drinks.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:39

In between, I had a bird before and a bird after. But yeah, I was single for a period.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:43

So your focus was just going which maybe most people experience at 15, and this you've experienced it later on, then aren't you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:50

Around about somewhere around there first.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:52

But that ties more in then. I was kind of right then, so what was happening at the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:55

Yeah, yeah. Maybe it was.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:58

Did you know that? Did you just did you blag that? Or did you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:00

I mean did you like it now or did you knew what I said? No, no, no. I I I did the I stopped fighting and um I I found having fun. And I had no fun, like alcohol fun and going out and I get it, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:13

That sounds like you've lived a very serious life.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:16

But it doesn't make sense to people because they think, well, we didn't make it very far.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:19

But no, it doesn't mean to me, because you led such a disciplined life. Yeah. Like we've all when like you you meet your missus or whatever, you think, yeah, I've I've done a lot of partying, I'm really settled down or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:29

But if you've not really done a lot of partying and a lot of things, and you just I mean, yeah, I was very, very well behaved in my twenties, and then I let loose in that first I don't know, might have been 29 or something, around about 30, somewhere around there. Yeah, I let loose and um realised that hang on a minute, there's more to life than getting beaten up every day, and you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:50

And unfortunately, or even fortunately, whatever way you look.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:52

Was it a new group of friends that you're going out with as well? I'm a guessing, or was it the same group that you just who were going out anyway?

SPEAKER_04 1:28:57

You know what it's like? So your mates might have a bird at a time and then they can't go out. So then I kind of had to rediscover uh people to go out with. So I had a friend or two that were single and they would live that party life. So I tagged along with them and then I made friends off the back of that. But that whole period there, the friends that you make in those party days, it's all bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:20

There's no depth to it. No, it's like your shared experiences, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:29:23

The guys that you were like, you know, get out four nights a week with and you know, getting smash of and oh, brotherly love and all that shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:30

You don't even spoke to since you stopped, you know, going out and saying it's a shared experience of being drunk or I don't know if you don't you have to mention drugs, but you know, it's a shared experience, in it. Yeah. Basically, that you're having. So you're just vibing at the same time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:43

Yeah, but I had a fantastic time. Yes, and if we're going along the lines of what you're saying with everything was meant to happen, yeah, I was meant to have lived, you know, a concentrated, strict period in my 20s, and then bang, got to my late 20s, early 30s, I went mad. I'm having it, had fun, caught up a little bit. Yeah, I'd say I probably had not like an unhealthy relationship with drink, but I I was quite good at drinking vodka. So didn't touch it. Yeah, for me, I could drink vodka. I could drink a quite I don't remember six foot geezy, and I'm gonna get it. That's what I was thinking. You're bigger than drink foot. I'm six six two, something like that. But I can drink vodka. I could at that point drink vodka, so I can't just have one or two drinks. If I was gonna go out, we're going out. And that's that was at that point there where I didn't have nothing to worry about. I had no kids. I was back at my mum's, living on a mattress on the floor. I had nothing, like, I had nothing going for me. I was behind the scenes, I had a nice, you know, I might have bought a shirt to go out with that one shirt you go out with, yeah. The reality of that, the worst thing that probably happened there was as well, I befriended people that worked in the industry. So one of my friends was a bar manager in probably the best club at the time in London. So suddenly, you haven't got to pay for anything. Yeah, and that's deadly. Oh, yeah. Because now he's like, he's there Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays. So so are you, so am I, yeah? And that's how it became. And then suddenly, without realising it, you're drinking for free, you're drinking four nights a week. Yeah, it's fun, but you're 32 or 30, whatever it was, you know, you're in your 30s now and you're living on a mattress at your mum's.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:21

Hang on a minute. You've had that you had that realisation.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:25

And and and you know, if you drink, you're getting up the next day, and I was doing odds and sods, PTing or whatever, but you'd put them off till like three or four in the afternoon, see if we've got to get up early. You're getting up at midday, you're stinking a booze. You're you know, it's like your mum's seeing that, and you're like, what am I doing here? You know what I mean? But you know, I had some catching up to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:45

Yeah, no, yeah, that's what we are. I don't think anyone will take that away from me either.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:48

I had some catching up to do, and and I had that, and I'd done, I I'd done that. I feel I'd done that, and uh there's nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

Is that your system and that's not a thing?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:54

Yeah, yeah, to be honest. Like, I'm I've actually got it really good now where I found a partner or missus where I actually met her going out in London, and um I didn't want a bird at the time. She didn't want a geezer, she hated me. Like, she wouldn't come near me. Like, I remember meeting her, and uh, my my it was my bar manager's friend, he was like, Oh CJ, I've got these German girls, they've all got, you know, strippers come on. Yeah, and I'm like, strippers is like, nah, nah, but you know, they're like glamorous bum bum bum. So I'm like, right. Met her, she was like what you want. What hang on a minute, like yeah, we're going out, are we? She wouldn't come near me I don't know, a couple of months, and I'd you know, chased her, chased her, and then inevitably got with her, next thing you know, you got a baby, and we had the coolest relationship because like I can still be me. And if I want to go out, I went out a few weeks ago, first time in ages. I went out, got drunk, got in late. There's none of that. Like, I've had previous relationships where it's like, oh, none of that. Like, yeah, and I'd and if she goes out, I'll do exactly the same. I'd encourage her, babe, go out, have a good time, speak to you in the morning. You know what I mean? Have fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's how it should be. That's how it should be. It doesn't matter, does it?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:15

Yeah. Exactly. And like if if I feel like what happens is you end up people end up getting with people and they kind of lie about they pretend to be something they're not, and the crack show.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:26

Oh, yeah, yeah, it's not gonna last. Yeah, it can't last again. Oh, I don't like all that love.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:35

Oh, I've got to go on a lad's holiday. No, I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:38

Well, I might have to go, you know what I mean? But like you, you if you're not yourself from the very start, I think that's a massive problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:46

Yeah. Because like then you're adjusting later on. You're adjusting or splitting up, aren't you?

SPEAKER_04 1:33:50

Yeah, yeah, and there's gonna be there's gonna be problems down the line. But uh yeah, at the start of it, she met me when I was going out, and boom, boom, boom, she was going out, and we just kind of came together at the right time. Like you said, everything's meant to be, everything happens for a reason. Are you starting to agree? No, I I do I do actually say I do actually say that a lot. Like I do believe that you know without hanging your out on something, you believe in something. Yeah, but I wouldn't label myself as very spirit spiritual or religious or any of that, any of that sort of stuff. I just but I do agree, I do agree, like if this thing hadn't happened, you wouldn't be on the path for any of that stuff to have happened in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:26

So I'm and then that's that's where the self-ex-awareness comes in, then you start exploring and thinking, well, why? And da da da and- and you you can just go deeper and deeper and then you can come back up again and just like look into it, dip out, dip in, and just see what's what.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:40

If um there's another question for you. So there's two because obviously I've run over. Sorry, Rich. Right, um, if um there's two little things I want to touch on before we close it. One is because there's another question I've sort of introduced. Um not as hard as who are you, but uh it's just another question, but I'll ask that in a second. So just before then, if you could make uh wave a magic wand now uh on how you would earn a living, what would you do? What would your choice be? So if I said to you, CJ, I've got a magic wand here, how how m not how much a bit personal, but what would you do for a living right now to earn money, to provide for your family, not living in London because you want to be out of London, don't you? What would you want to be doing? And I could just go, there you go, I've I've done that for you. What would it be?

SPEAKER_04 1:35:32

I like teaching people. I am teaching people, I always have, I say always, the last few years done bits and pieces. I worked full-time at it for a little while, boxing training. I enjoy it. I don't want to say I'm good at it, but I'm good at kind of having a look at someone because I can I've been there and I've done it, and I can still hold my hands up and move around. I can get in front of anyone really and say, right, maybe if they need improving, I can improve this. So I feel like that's something I'm pretty good at and I enjoy doing. I've done a job for ages that you don't enjoy to do. That's shit. As I said, that's horrible. Like so the next thing I go on to do, I want it to be something that I enjoy. And um I I guess I guess, yeah, if you could wave a magic wand, I'd be out of London. But my mum, uh I want to get my mum and my little one out of London. My mum, she's got a bad hip. I want to get her in the uh in the sun somewhere warm. That's my little goal. Um get my little one away from you know London and how it is. Uh so if you could wave a magic wand, please, I will have I don't know, somewhere sunny, teaching boxing, helping people, making people better.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:50

That would be I'm not worrying about the bills in the day-to-day.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:53

And being comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:55

Yeah, I'm not I'm not fussed about like Ferrari. You know, when you know when you're young, like I used to sit there for hours on a water trader, like, oh, oh, that's the what can I get for 20 grand, 30 grand, oh I like that Bentley, or I just don't I just don't care. Like, I don't look at none of that stuff no more. All I want is mum and little one out of London, and my missus obviously, and I want to be comfortable, I don't want to have to work nine hours a night just just to scratch by. You know, I want to be somewhere I want to be, and I want to have that time because I'm very grateful for the time I have of my little one. What nights has done is it means I can be around for my little one, pick her up from school every day, um and that gives me you know two or three hours where before you can um I can go work. Whereas if you're working nine to five in a day, you don't get to do that. You get home and you bollocks, and then you've got to go to bed and do it all again the next morning. So yeah, if you could wave your magic wand, I'd want to be somewhere a bit warmer and I'd want to be comfortable, and I'd want the family just to be happy. That that that that for me is enough. I don't look at Bentley's or I don't I used to put being to watches, I used to quite like a watch. I haven't I haven't put a watch in a search bar on any platform for for years. It's completely it means nothing to me now, like and it's all very well watched, do you actually? No, no, no, and it's all and it's all very well talking from where I am skin. You know what I mean? And it's not like I'm jealous of anyone of uh I'm not I just don't want for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:25

Like I I want Yeah, you're not saying you wouldn't treat yourself to an ice watch if you had if you won the lottery tomorrow. You might treat yourself to an ice watch, and that's what you're saying is yeah, my desires, yeah, priorities have changed.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:35

Priorities have changed, and um that that happens as you get older and you get I think you become a dad.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:41

You know what it's like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. Um because I um well the next question the the question the the the one I've sorted to introduce to people which I've kind of accidentally done already is what do you want? Because who are you is a tough question that you can ponder on over time. Um and then the second one is what do you want? And that is also uh if you look if you go into it more and more is is a deep question. But I think some people are blessed with um either ignorance or a lack of um and that's I mean it, I mean it, I'm not like I mean it like they're blessed with ignorance or blessed with a lack of desire, and that is a it is a blessing in a way because you haven't got that need and want, have you? You're just completely happy, like you were saying before about people, if they're happy just going to work and work in the fine, yeah, each to your own. Um so the question at the end is what do you want? But I think you can't just answer that in a way, haven't you? Really?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:37

I can't yeah, I kind of just um I probably just messed up your second question.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:42

Yeah, yeah, no, you didn't, you didn't, no, yeah. But I think I and it's a lovely little it's a and I think you'll do it, won't you?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:49

I'm not gonna stop until I do. I'm not gonna stop doing things like this, I'm not gonna stop, you know, this little path that I'm on, I'm just not gonna stop. And um, I suppose inevitably, if you don't give up, you're gonna have to crack it at some point, right? Yeah, 100%. There's that horrible saying, throw enough shit, something will stick. Yeah, but it's true though, innit?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:09

And he's like, what point, you know, how how and when do you decide you haven't given up until you've given up, if you know what I mean, have you? You if you keep going, you keep going. I I that do you know that Joe Wicks guy? Yeah, he got found fame really during COVID, didn't he? Doing those online classes, didn't he? Keeping people and that's sort of what you're doing now, but for free. So I suppose it it's it's monetising that in some way, maybe, for you, hopefully. Yeah, maybe uh You're never gonna fight again, you don't want to fight, do you?

SPEAKER_04 1:40:40

I don't want to fight. I've got no fight left in me. Um I it's very like I mean, it's a tricky question because if someone turned around to m to me and said, Look, I've got a life-changing amount of money for you, which probably wouldn't be a lot of money, but it would probably make a difference to me. It would get me out of London and you know, my family out of London.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:00

Yeah, we can get you to Spain, what you want, fast forward, yeah, but you've got to go and fight X.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:04

If you give you six months' rent, yeah, I I wouldn't I wouldn't think about it twice.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:10

Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:10

Because it'd be um it'd be a head start. You know, like but otherwise, I don't want to fight.

unknown 1:41:17

No.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:17

I've got no interest in fighting. Because the problem I've got is I don't know what went wrong last time. And I I had good camps and all that stuff, and the last couple of fights I just didn't want to be there. Did you spar now?

SPEAKER_02 1:41:29

No. You don't even spar?

SPEAKER_04 1:41:31

No. So that would be the first thing I've said when I've answered that question recently is I've started I'd have to go and spar. I get asked about would you go on Misfits? And um my immediate reaction would be, I don't think I've got any fight left in me, I'd have to go back and spar and see how I feel. And I would be very honest about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:49

But I can get into your head there though, because there'd be enough fighting you for your daughter and your mum, wouldn't there?

SPEAKER_04 1:41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:56

You go and fight for them. So that's where the fight had come from, wouldn't it? So if they can give it.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:01

Yeah, well, you have to find your reason.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:03

That is the reason. If they gave you a win bonus, come fight. If you win, you you know, you'd you'd be you'd be training. Of course. Of course.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:10

But do I want to fight? No. And I haven't got the um nowadays, unfortunately, especially with something like Misfits, you need to go at the press conference, you need to be talking to people and you know, talking bad and critical.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:21

Yeah, yeah, they're I haven't got any. You'd be like, I'm alright with him, I'm just gonna.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:29

Kill the press conference. I'm like, yeah, yeah. To be fair, I'm not that great. Yeah, like John Fiorish took the ticket in the front of the job. John came off.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:40

The water fell down, mate. I'm like, yeah, I've got that's not the that's not the the image that I'm portraying, you know. I've got no want for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:50

That might be but that might be quite entertaining.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:52

This guy just going at you and I'm just happy like it's so fucking nice, I'm gonna smash your face in.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:57

Yeah, yeah. Whatever he said, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:01

Yeah, but um, that would be quite good, good fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:05

I couldn't build the I couldn't build a fight, I couldn't give them what they want, you know. I'd go out and have a fight.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:09

Yeah, but they want that hype, they need that hype to sell tickets.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:13

That's not me.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:13

I went to that Misfits fight, right? And uh to watch Arms and that. And I was near the front, which was so thank you, Arms, and uh it was good to watch them. But then you know, I come out of there, oh my god, it's like the world's nightclub being kicked out. I mean that honestly, the world the England's nightclub being kicked out, not just like I don't know, Nottingham, London, Manchester, whatever, it was England's nightclub. And anyone was there can say I was right. Well, it was Ag. Oh, everyone was arguing, there was pissed, it was just it was nuts.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:44

See, I don't even really like I don't like any of that. When poor old uh Big Stax got a whack at that thing recently, I was gutted for him because like I kind of understand what he's done and what he's doing, he's built a reputation, he's built the the persona, that's the word, the persona, right? And that you can tell if you're a fighter, you can tell the second I saw him hitting pads, you can tell within two shots. I was like, oh no. No, no, not in a bad way, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can see he's not a fighter, yeah. And you can see what he's done, and I take my hat off to him.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:15

He was gonna do it, he was gonna do it. Fair play. Like you said, getting that ring with 25,000 people watching you, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:21

But the second you saw him hold his hands up, you knew he wasn't a fighter. For him to then catch a whack at the at the at the point.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:29

Suckle punch as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:30

Yeah, I was gutted for him. I was gutted for him because what people don't talk about is it's scary enough to get in the ring, but he's just been bullied there, really, been a bit victimised there. If you're not from that, that's gonna mess your head up. Like even more so, you know what I mean? And I know he said before, no, I'm not worried, bomb, bomb, bomb. But that'll that if you're not, you know, if you're not from that world, he got it's just he portrays the thing of a bully, but unfortunately that day he got bullied by a real bully, unfortunately. Yeah, um, I was gutted for him.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:03

Yeah, because I and I really wanted to see that fight as well. Yeah, I was so the body shot thing was just people were buoyed and everything watching because they were body shotting, weren't they? And the crowd were bowing.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:11

I didn't really get to properly watch it. Um I just see it kind of the the the bits and pieces on on a phone. But the second I see what they were doing, you could see they've had some sort of agreement and it's not.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:20

It was body shots only. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:22

Yeah, which I've got to say I was a bit gutted with because we want to see that fight. I would have liked to have seen the fight, but what I but misfits it is a real is a really weird thing because it's in the middle of boxing and it's in the middle of entertainment. And they've obviously grabbed hold of it and just run with it. And people want it, they're buying tickets, the buying thing. Exactly. So everyone's moaning about it, but they're still paying to see it and they're still clicking on it, and you know, I I don't particularly like a lot of what I see with the the AG because I'm a sucker for respect, old school, you know, manners. And that all goes out the window. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. That's all gone. So, but then people play the game differently, you know. Some people like to get in the used to even back when I was fighting, you'd have, you know, guys be a bit funny or whatever, but you never had to that extent where they're hitting it, each other they're hitting each other before the it just wasn't done. There was a code.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's not that. No, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:16

They're just but that kind of gets disrespected and thrown out the window, which is the part I don't like.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:20

But at the same time, I do understand it's entertainment, it's not really and it is entertaining, like the ring walks were good and the hype and the people and the yeah, well, it was good to watch. It was but if you're a true boxing fan on Summit, you're gonna be irritated watching it. You can't go there thinking I'm watching as a boxing fan. And that was the only thing that kind of like in between what uh wrestling and and boxing, innit, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:42

But that was the only thing I was a bit gutted with because I I they sold it as they were still going to fight.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:47

And no, not sure. Just don't fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:50

Call it off. He's he's got a massive if what I saw was real Yeah, like a hole, wasn't it? Like a hole. I've never seen that before. Sanctioning body, I don't know if Miss Fitz is sanctioned, it must be surely to some extent. Must be regulated, right? I don't know. Whoever says we can put this event on, they must have seen that. And any anyone with a brain would say you cannot fight.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:08

Like want it on there.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:09

You could lie about it and get it stitched up and not, you know, but but it was a big, it was a hole.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:14

Yeah, but even if you've got stitched up one little tiny thing and it just bust open, it's just so but they should have probably just not fought and fought.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:20

But then Misfits don't care. They're not trying to uphold some sort of yeah, we are a proper fight show. But it's a really weird thing because you've got Darren Till on there and you've got, you know, some some actually old not old, sorry, some some some you know, you've got like ex UFC guys, not old, but X UFC guys coming in and genuine fighters on there. So it is it is a really confusing thing to take in. But people are paying the money and liking it sometimes, isn't it? They are. I mean, I saw some guy sprint across the ring and rugby tackle another guy was going. I don't know what was really going on there.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:49

That was weird watching that one because he was going on the ground, he was banging the ground like a baby, like a those fights they were actually fighters though, guys. Yeah, they fought. I mean I don't know what level of fighters they are.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:57

I see the guy um I saw the guy who got rugby tackled, he fought the gale the Gail bare knuckle. Did he? Yeah, I'm sure he fought the gale. Is it the Gail Bare Knuckle? I don't know. I'm rubbish. Somebody punches to the air.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:11

So we'll have a we'll have a Miss Fitz fight. Can you Miss Fitz payos? We'll have a fight, but we'll just be dead nice for all for the press conference. Right, see how you feel? Yeah, not bad. Don't hit me too hard, CJ. Alright, cheers. Right, before I close it, is there anything that you've thought in your head, oh I'm gonna say this on the podcast, or I forgot to say this earlier. Is there anything you want to say yourself freely freely?

SPEAKER_04 1:48:33

No, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:36

No, I appreciate you coming up from London.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:38

My hands are a bit sweaty, it's been warming here.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:40

All right, god appreciate it, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:42

Thank you very much.