Ep 23 | Andrew Jenkins | From The Traitors to the Truth

He Died at 21. This Is What He Did Next.

At 21 years old, Andrew Jenkins was dragged from a car wreck, lost six pints of blood, and was pronounced clinically dead at the scene. He spent four weeks in a coma. Doctors told his family he would never walk, talk, or recognise them again.

He proved every one of them wrong.

But surviving was only the beginning. For the next 24 years, Andrew carried the weight of that moment in silence - battling depression, a loss of identity, and the invisible aftermath of a traumatic brain injury - all while wearing a smile and holding down a career in banking.

Then came The Traitors. And a walk of 750 miles across four nations. And the conversations he'd been putting off for two and a half decades.

In this episode, Andrew sits down with Emyr Afan on Inside the Maverick Mind to talk about:

• 💥 The night of the accident - and what his parents were told at the door
• 🧠 Waking from a coma to be told he'd never walk again - and arguing with the doctor
• 😶 Why he never told his son "I love you" until he was 22 years old
• 🎭 What it was really like being a Traitor - and why he says he was "too honest to win"
• 🚶 Walking 750 miles for Headway brain injury charity - and who was waiting at the finish line
• 💬 The conversations he avoided for 24 years - and what happened when he finally had them
• 📱 Why he's known as "the antidote to Andrew Tate" in schools across the UK
• 🪞 How holding a mirror up to yourself changes everything

This is one of the most honest, moving, and quietly powerful conversations you'll hear this year. Andrew is a normal guy from a council estate in the Welsh Valleys. And that's exactly what makes this so important.

"85% of what we worry about never comes true. Be brave. Have the conversation."

🔔 Subscribe — new episodes every Monday at 6pm

👇 Who in your life needs to hear this? Share it with them.

📌 Chapters:

00:00 — Introduction: Clinically dead at 21

02:30 — Growing up in a Welsh valley — rugby, masculinity & silence

08:00 — The night of the accident

15:00 — Waking from the coma & proving the doctors wrong

21:00 — 24 years of hidden depression

27:00 — The maverick moment: finding the surgeon who saved his life

33:00 — Telling his son "I love you" for the first time

38:00 — The Traitors: being too honest to win

45:00 — Walking 750 miles for Headway

52:00 — Being the antidote to Andrew Tate

57:00 — What strength really means

🔗 Find Andrew Jenkins: [Add his social links here]

🔗 Headway Brain Injury Association: headway.org.uk

#AndrewJenkins #TheTraitors #MentalHealth #MensHealth #BrainInjury #Coma #Resilience #InsideTheMaverickMind #Podcast #Wales #Headway #Courage #StrengthInYou

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

At 21, Andrew Jenkins was pronounced clinically dead. He spent four weeks in a coma. Doctors warned his family he might never walk, talk, or recognise them ever again. But Andrew survived. He rebuilt his body. Then came the battle no one could see. Today many know him from the traitors, but this story goes far deeper than television. It is about trauma, silence, resilience, mental health, and finding the strength to speak. This is Andrew Jenkins. Let's get inside his Maverick Mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Welcome. Welcome, I've been really looking forward. It's an actual privilege to sit here and actually finally meet you. Oh, thank you. I followed your journey for quite some time on uh LinkedIn. It's actually nice to get a chance to sit with you.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Uh I post every once in a while. Um before everything changed, who was Andrew Jenkins?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Oh god, I was born into a very traditional Welsh family. I suppose my mother and father be married 58 years. You know, my parents are lovely human beings, but they're so old-fashioned and set in their ways. You know, they've never driven a car, they've never been on an aeroplane, they have the same food at the same time every day. One o'clock is lunch, five o'clock is dinner. They watch the same things on television, Emmerdale Farm, Coronation Street, Yorkshire Vet, Andre Rue. They're creatures of habit. You know, they hate change. They don't have internet, they haven't got mobile phones. You know, love in my family was expressed physically, not emotionally. A roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table. Like I've never heard my parents say the words I love you. Because I understand now that generation, they struggle to express their feelings and emotions. So it's only the last couple of years I've understood that. I've got three brothers, two older, one younger. My parents kept trying for a girl all the time, but it just never happened. Kept having boys all the time. And sport in my family was massive, particularly rugby. And my dream, like lots of people in Wales, was to pull on the red jersey, run out on the hallowed turf in front of 80,000 screaming fans and sing the national anthem. And that was my dream. And my three brothers played professional rugby as well. My oldest brother Simon played for Wales A, which was the second team in Wales, which is no longer, but he played five or six times for them. But the problem was growing up that I attached my um self-worth and my value as a human being, and also my father's love and affection to rugby. So he'd come and watch all my games, he'd be on the touch line, smiling, and that was my problem growing up. And in later lifetime, I started going to the gym at 14, and then I started worked as a bodyguard in London for many years. You know, environments where you're told to man up, where showing feelings and emotions is seen as a weakness. So I wasn't lying to myself, I was just trying to fit in and belong and do what I thought I was doing, and my role models growing up were in my local rugby club, for example. So I was like 10 years of age, watching men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s say and do things, and I thought, just copy them. There's a learned behaviour. And the four ways I measured my my masculinity growing up, I suppose, was how many pints I could drink, how many girls I'd been with, how many fights I'd had, and how much I could bench press in the gym. And those were the measures that we used to work out your pecking order amongst your peers. And people laugh. I can say I can guarantee that's what it was like growing up. If I drank 20 pints, or you're hard, drunk two pints, you were called a name. And I slept with 100 girls, or he's cool, slept with one girl, you were called a virgin. And I said that that's the peer pressure growing up, but that's why there was no talk about feelings and emotions, it was all physical stuff. So yeah, it had a great upbringing to be honest. But it was all this testosterone, macho, competitive environment I grew up in.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, I recognise that, and I see it everywhere. And uh a book that helped me a lot because I had a similar situation. My parents were giving, but I wanted my father to come and watch me play rugby. But the kingdom of God was more important to him because that he was a minister. Um, but he did show an interest in my music, and that meant a lot to me, so I you know I ramped up the volume of my music. The book is called Five Languages of Love. Not everybody loves you in the same way, but some practically, some physically, and that has helped me. So it's great that you've got that insight to see the younger you as well, and you've looked back to put that in context. Well, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Well, over the last say three or four years, I held a mirror up to myself, and I started looking inwards at my flaws, my patterns, and my triggers. I'm just more much more self-aware and emotionally intelligent than I was a few years back, I suppose. And holding our mirror up is scary, and I can see why some people go through the whole their lives not holding our mirror up to themselves. You gotta look at all your deepest, darkest secrets and everything. But I think once you start doing it, people around you get a true version of you. I'm you know, I'm being vulnerable, for example. I thought vulnerable is a weakness, and you know, being vulnerable is actually brave and strong and courageous, to be honest. And I've I've lent into my vulnerable side and I've taken my mask off, if you want. I've I'm being my true authentic self now and trying to live my life as in line with my values, and rather than trying to fit in with all these like different groups and all these other ex people's expectations, my parents' expectations, I'm now doing what I want to do. So, yeah, it's it's you know, it's it's great. I get lots of light bulb moments over the last couple of years, thinking, oh, that's why I did that. That's why I was like I was, and that's why this. And there's so many light bulb moments I get when I start looking inwards and reading so many books I've read. The Chim Paradox is one of the best books I've ever read. And oh, there's so many good books I've read over the last couple of years, which which answer a lot of questions over the last couple of years, really.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Definitely. I'm curious, did your parents change their routine to watch the traitors and what did they make of it?

SPEAKER_00 5:09

They did watch it. I think I they never say they're proud of me, or they never they never really give me an opinion, to be honest, but they did. I know they watched it, and uh my brothers were there, all three of my brothers watched it, and it's funny because when obviously I signed an NDA to go on there, so I couldn't tell anybody where I was gone. So I went away for four weeks to Scotland. My mother didn't know where I'd gone. There's only about three or four people who knew, so it's strange. You film it and you go away, you can't tell anybody where you are, and you come back, and then you've got to go back into your normal life until it's on the telly four months later, and then it's it's just a funny thing. My mother thought I was working away doing insurance for four weeks in Scotland. Why I was doing insurance in Scotland, I don't know, but that's what I told her anyway. Did you come back with a slight Scottish accent? Yeah, with a kilt on. Yeah, no, I didn't. So and I didn't tell her because you know my mother's a lovely woman and I was a lovely woman, and she works in a local news agency called Talbot News and Gift, but she's a local gossip. You know, I'm gonna read the newspaper where I live in Flantrison. You just talk to my mother and she'll tell you everything. So if I told my mother where I'd gone, the whole of Talbot Green and Flantrison where I knew where I'd be, so I couldn't tell her. So my dad knew, my younger brother knew, my son knew, and that was Brit, I think. My boss in work knew because I had to tell him I had to get four weeks off work.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, that's a long time. I want to take you back to uh the accident. What do you remember about that?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Well, luckily, I don't actually remember anything about this. So people in the car probably had it four of five of us in the car, four passengers. So they added worse than me psychologically, because I can't remember it physically. I took the brunt of it, and they didn't have a scratch on them, thankfully. So I was driving, hit a curb on the left hand side, the car flipped onto the right hand side, and I went through the driver's side window, the driver's door. So my head and my arm were dragged on the floor for a couple hundred yards on the side, and when the car finished sliding, it leant on top of me. So when the fire brigade, the police, and the ambulance turned up at the scene, they initially thought I was dead on the side of the road. I had to be given more blood because the average man has between 10 and 12 pints of blood in their body. I lost six, so I had no hair, no skin, nothing on top of my head, and a big hole in my skull, half my skull had gone, and a big hole in my arm. They took me to one hospital in South Wales, but there was nothing they could do there for me in Newport, they're all Gwent. They then took me to Morriston in Swansea because that's where neurology was in plastic surgery at the time. And while all that was going on, my my poor parents had the dreaded knock on the door, and no parent wants to say, You've got to come with us now. Your son's been involved in an RTA, a road traffic accident. And they said, Oh, we'll get changed, we'll come with you now, officer. And they said, You haven't got time to get changed, it's critical, you have to come now. So they were blue-lighted to the first hospital. But as soon as they got there, I was on a trolley coming out of the hospital, they put in the back of an ambulance to get transferred to the second hospital. They weren't allowed to see me because as you can imagine, I was in such a bad way. And they they my dad said, Can I travel in the back of the ambulance with him? And they said no, because you've got a doctor, a nurse, an old machinery keeping your son alive. And they said, We don't think he's gonna make the trip from the first to the second hospital, which is probably what's new put a swanse, 40 minutes, 35 minutes. So they travelled in the back of a police car behind, you know, blue lights flashing, sirens blaring, and I got rushed straight into the theatre. And the first operation I have is to take all the bone from my brain, and then I take all the skin and hair off the back of my head and put it on the top of my head and work on saving my arm. I was then in a coma then for a number of weeks in intensive care, and my family were told on a number of occasions to come and say goodbye. And then when I started recovering, they said, from the scans we've done on him, he's got severe brain damage, because lots of shadows on his brain, which means dead tissue. So they said if he wakes up, he's not going to be able to walk, talk, use his arms, or recognise anyone ever again. So expect the worst, basically. So I remember then waking up four weeks later, I suppose, scared, frightened. I didn't know where I was, I had a tracheopt in my throat there so I could breathe. A tube in this groin feeding me, a tube in this groin pumping me full of morphine and painkillers, and my parents were on my bedside crying. I had to explain where I was, what happened to me. So yeah, it was scary. It was really scary when I woke up and that. So yeah, that's so that's the first thing I remember really waking up. How did you process being told you had been clinically dead? I can't remember a great deal about it because I was on so much morphine I can remember. I got all I guess hallucinating all the time. And yeah, but I remember the first thing I really remember clearly, vividly, was the doctor coming around and standing by my bedside and saying to me, You're never ever gonna walk again. And my first response was, I guarantee I'll walk at this hospital. And he said, He won't. And I said, I will. He said he won't. I said I will. And I was like, Oh no, he's like a pantomime, and uh and I did my mother said it's embarrassing. The man is trying to tell you not gonna walk again. You're arguing with a tra- I couldn't I didn't speak like that, it's like sounding like Darth Vader, I had a tracheoptomy in. And I was arguing, saying I would. And then two months later, they got me out of bed for the first time on my feet, the physio. I literally stood there and I couldn't find my legs. It sounds funny, I couldn't find my legs, I stood there and I could not remember how to walk. And I've trained normal, I've done bodybuilding, I've trained how I played rugby at a good level, so I understand body, mind muscle, and the physio had to pick my feet up, put one in front of the other, and a few days later I remembered how to walk, and then two weeks later, I let go of the bars and took my first steps the first time. So I proved the expert wrong, and I learned I walked then, and I was fit and strong, and I was resilient and determined. So even though at the start I said about we didn't get the perhaps the emotional support when I was younger, but having three brothers and coming from that strong background, I think that probably helped me with resilience and pull through my accident and also having a strong mindset to say, you know, I'll tell you, I'll I'll prove you wrong, and I'll be in competitive in sport that helped me through that side of things. I think I wouldn't be a now today if it wasn't for that, plus the fact I was quite fit and strong as well, so yeah. But then my biggest thing then was mental health moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah, how did you feel like when you were trying to get back to the old, Andrew, or did you accept becoming a new version of you?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Oh, that's a big question. Um, that's what I struggled with for in silence for many, many years. And I refused counselling after my accident because I assumed I was gonna see somebody in a white coat who's gonna judge me, look down there, knows me, psychoanalyse me, and I thought, pfft, I'm not seeing that. I'm a macho 21-year-old. Nobody talks about feelings where I come from. So I didn't talk about it. I couldn't talk to my family. We don't talk about feelings and emotions. Rugby, boxing, football, sport, not feeling men, it's not feelings and emotions. So I bottled my feelings up for years. I didn't speak to anybody. So I go off to work every day in banking, had a good job in the bank with a smile on my face and the nice house, the car, the body. Beyond closed, I hated myself, wish I was dead, wish I wasn't here anymore, hated my life. You know, if I look back, I probably had clinical depression, looking at all the research and the study I've done over the last couple of years, but I never saw anybody I spoke to or anybody. I hid it. Like lots of people do, and you know, men nowadays, we wear masks all the time. And I say to people, it's the people the biggest houses, the nicest cars, the biggest smiles on their faces are struggling the most. Don't judge anyone, you're not going behind closed doors. So I really struggled for years and years and years. And the first time I went to see anybody about my accident was 15 years later. I went to see a counsellor, and she was incredible, she wasn't what I was expecting at all. And after the first session, she said, I know what's wrong with you. And I said, Boss, that PTSD and depression. And she goes, You probably got a bit of them as well. But no, she's grieving. And I said, Grieving? I'm not dead, I'm standing here talking to you. And she goes, Grief, all grief is the emotional reaction to the loss of any kind, and you're grieving, loss of identity, and you're struggling with that. So I was a rugby boy from the age of five to twenty-one. My dream of rugby for whales, and me, my dad talking to my brothers. When I couldn't do that anymore at 21, I thought my dad didn't love me anymore. And that might sound crazy now, but I generally thought he didn't. I thought my brothers are better than me. Because I'd see my dad talking to my brothers on every Sunday night. My mother used to do a big family dinner or tea, if you're Pautious dinner. I call it a tea at five o'clock on a Sunday night. She had she makes pies, pasties, big buffet. All the brothers would go there with their girlfriends, partners, and the kids. All the men would end up in one room, my dad watching Scrum 5 on the telly, and they'd be talking about rugby. They were still playing. So they were saying, I played rugby yesterday, I done this, and my dad's smiling. I'm sat there thinking, what can I talk about? Like, I can't talk about anything. And I went silent for years. I didn't. That's why I talk so fast now. I think I was suppressed for so long, and I I didn't think I had anything to contribute to the conversation. I thought they were better than me. So I didn't belong in my own family. I did I I was an outsider in my own family, and that's hard. And yeah, I struggled. And that went on for 24 years, really. I really struggled with it. A loss of identity. And she said, People's loss of identity all the time. When you you're tender for a big project, then work doesn't come off. When you remove jobs, when you get made redundant, grief is massive, and nobody really talks about it. It's a bit of a taboo subject, but it's not just physical loss. So I was grieving my old my whole life, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

On this show, we ask every guest about what's their maverick moment, the moment where something shifted and you chose a different path. What was your maverick moment?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

I think the biggest thing for me really was meeting the man who saved my life. I tracked him there on Google. A bit creepy, I know. But I I hadn't seen him for 24 years, it's just 24 years after my accident. And uh I went to see him in his office in Swansea, Professor Lang, an incredible human being, and he's really well respected in medicine, not just in Wales, but in the UK. He goes to Westminster, he's really he's a lovely guy. And I walked into his office, as you can imagine, it was a very emotional day. It's not every day you get a chance to shake the hand of the man who saved your life. And I know he had a team of people around him, but he was the main surgeon, and um he said, Wow, you're a miracle. He said, You should be dead. You should have died on so many occasions, I can't believe how big and strong you are. So meeting him and realize how close I came to death. I knew I was close, but I didn't know how bad, I suppose. So to hear it from the horses' mouth, I say, So after that, I wanted to start talking my journey on social media to help other people. Because my demo, lots of my friends were like rugby players, doormen, gym people, bodyguard, the worst demographic opening up and talking. So I wanted to start sharing my story to help other people, really. And I had a small little platform on Facebook, I didn't really have Instagram. So, but I wanted to start talking my journey, but I didn't want my family to find out third party because it involved them, obviously. So I sat my parents down for the first time ever and spoke about the accident 24 years after it happened. We never spoke about it. It was like the elephant in the room, it was brushed under the carpet. But like I'm compassionate towards my parents now because they don't know how to express this or how to approach it. They never asked me about it, what happened, how I was feeling. It was just like I don't know, it was weird, it was strange. And then I sat them down, I said, I want to talk about the accident. What do you want to talk about that for? Forget about it. It was a long time ago. I want to talk about it. You changed, they said, after your accident, you're a different boy, you went quiet and moody and miserable. I said, I wasn't quiet, I think I didn't fit in my own family. I didn't think my dad loved me anymore. I don't be so stupid, of course he loved me. I said, I know, but I didn't think it at the time. I thought my brothers are better than me. So we had this weird conversation anyway, but we had this conversation. But and then I spoke to my son on a Saturday morning in a coffee shop in Cardiff. He was studying in Cardiff Met, Sports Science, and we had a four and a half hour chat about life drink, drugs, girls, my accident. And at the end of that conversation, I told him I loved him the first time in his life. I'd never told my son I loved him. He was 22 years of age. So I bring in him, I was raising him exactly the same way as I got raised. I spoke to my oldest brother Simon on a Saturday afternoon, my other brother Kevin on a Sunday, my other brother Carl on a Monday. So that weekend was like a huge therapy weekend. But when I had them conversations, it was fine. I put them conversations off for 24 years, and 85% of what we worry about never comes true. 13% comes true, but better than we thought. It's only 2% that comes true. So all that overthinking, energy, and worry, when you have them conversations, it's fine. So there's anybody listening or watching, if you're putting off a conversation with anybody, work, boss, colleague, partner, be brave and creative, have that conversation. I wish I had them conversations years and years ago, but I've had it now, so I might it took a huge weight off my shoulders. They understand me better than where I've been for 24 years, I understand them better, and yeah, it's a huge conversation. It was a massive weekend.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

And that learned behaviour, you repeating the behaviour you were given as a child, you know, it's very difficult to shake that off.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

It was tough. It was tough to me, and and one thing I regret, I didn't, I still haven't told my dad I love him. And and people say to me, No, we told your dad now. And I said, No, I can't. I say it to my partner, I say to my son, and I say it to people, and I said, I don't know, because I've never done it in my life. And one thing I regret, my mother passed away back a few months ago, and uh I never told her I loved her, and she now I never heard of my parents, and she had a fall the week before she passed. I didn't think he was gonna die. I I was going away on my for my birthday on a Saturday, and uh all the fall, all the week the week before she she had a fall on the Sunday. That following week after the fall, I was saying to myself, tell you lover, go on, be big, put your big boy pants on, tell you lover. It's just three words. I went to see her on a Friday afternoon. We had a chat, and I leant over, I gave her a hug, and she was sat in her armchair. I hugged her and I said, I'll see you when I get back. I left, she died the next morning, so I didn't say it. So, you know, I uh I don't I I'm good with it. I I'm I'm at ease in. I'm I I know she hopefully knew I loved her, and I know you know she loved me, uh she knows I loved her, but my actions and everything, but I should have said it, but I still haven't told my dad, so I'm gonna make the same mistake of regret that I had my mum. Guess what you're doing later on today. No, I'll message you later. Oh, it's crazy. I don't know why I can't say I said it in once after my mother's funeral. I did my mother's eulogy, so you know it was a big funeral, and I said it in in the eulogy that we all loved in my my my three brothers and my my we all loved my dad. That's the only time I've ever told him. I don't know if he even heard me to be honest. He was upset, obviously, and I don't know if he even listened and hear it to be honest, but I told him, yeah. So I mean I will tell him one day, one day.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

It's a lot from that bravado world, isn't it? Yeah, it's crazy to connect with your emotions and people look at you weird. What are you doing that for? Well, you know, because it's a simple thing. You love somebody. I I I've never struggled with it because that's the April I had. But then I I miss it when I don't have it. So, you know, that's why that book helped me because um, you know, the very fact you were there for your mother leaning over, showing her what you thought of her was enough.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I understand everybody's got a love language. My mother's at language acts of service. When I left home at 22, my son was born. I'd never used a washing machine, never used a cooker, never used an iron. I was useless. My mother did everything for us, and that was her way of showing. She loved us. So I come home from rugby training, for example, dumped my washer on the washing on the floor by the washing machine, she'd wash it, for iron it, fold it, put it back in my wardrobe. Or my meals were cooked, and my three brothers exactly the same. I'm really into it. I had to grow up really fast when I was 22. I used to ring home all the time, ma'am. I got this to wash, I got this colour. What and she'd say, I'll just put it this on, I got this to cook, I got this is 180 degrees, that's 140 degrees. I'll just put it in the oven together. And I was used to living at home, but that's her, I understand now. That was her way of saying, I love you. And when I used to go there sometimes, she'd say to me, Oh, look, you haven't shaved, you're losing too much weight, do you look tired? I used to get frustrated and ma'am, stop having a gourmet. But after I've done obviously work over the last couple of years, I now understand that was her way of saying, I care about you and I love you. And I used to sit there then I used to when I years ago I used to walk off in a half. But now, when I the last couple of years, when she used to say, I used to sit there thinking to myself, inside, oh bless, she's telling me she loves me. And my dad's love language act was time. So you give up all his time to watch us playing rugby. So effectively, when I couldn't play rugby anymore, I didn't have his time, so I didn't think he loved me. So that I understand their love language is different. And I say everybody's got different love language, I think it's five or six or five. You should write in the book. Five. So I will have to read that book actually. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Why did you say yes to the traitors?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

They approached me, so I didn't apply for it. Um I had a casting director from Studio Lambert approached me on, I think it was Facebook, because I after I spoke to my family, I put quite a move-in post on in on Facebook, I think, explaining my journey and my story, and everything and it had 30 odd thousand views, I think. And yeah, it was really powerful. And then I had a message from a casting director saying, Your story looks incredible. Do you want to come on the show? And I said to my previous partner, I said, I think I got a great profile on a platform to help more people with mental health, and ultimately I want to save people's lives, and I want to change the culture in this country, and I'm big enough and strong. If I've got a good profile, I want to use my profile for good. And that's the only reason I went on there. I didn't go on there for it wasn't it wasn't fame-seeking, it wasn't like re-invention. I went on there to try and help more people. So the show didn't give me a voice, it gave my voice a bigger room, really. So, and that's the reason we're on the show for to help more people, and it's giving me it's the effect I wanted, to be honest with you. So I had to go through the process, they didn't give me the position. I still had to go through the the interviews and everything with the casting people and that, but that's I they instigated initially, and I wouldn't have gone on there and I wouldn't have applied for it. I don't watch reality TV normally. Yeah, it's just I I'm forever grateful for that show. It's giving me the opportunity to do what I do now, and I'm inspiring people. I get so many messages every day of people saying what you're helping them and you know saving lives, and people are going to take their own life and they didn't do it as a result of watching my video, my stories, and that. And yeah, I love what I do now. This is my purpose. I'm on this planet, and that might sound a bit woo-woo and a bit hippie. I'm on this planet for a reason. I should be dead, and I'm not. And for years, for years, 20 odd years, I was always asking myself, why am I still here? Why? God, why am I here? Why am I there's a reason I'm here, but I now think I found my purpose on this planet is help stand on stages, talking to people, coaching people, helping people to be the true version of themselves, really. And I think that's I found my on the right course now. I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

I don't think you would have got there without that second chance. Oh, 100%, no. Not at all. No, definitely not, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

You might think your life is going on one path, but all of a sudden, it might not work out that way. I talked to I've talked to 14 and a half thousand children in 51 schools around the UK, and I and they call me the antidote to Andrew Tate. There's a guy out there, there's people watch him, he's a total idiot. And I'm I but I grew up in that environment in rugby clubs and gyms saying jokes about girls, but I thought I saw men did. So I'm trying to use my platform now to show, especially young men, you know, men are really lost, young boys are really. Struggling at the moment, they're following people online and they're following, they believe in what he's saying, they're copying him. I'm trying to use my profile to try and change the culture in this country. Like, do you mean I think the way you change the culture in this country is to talk and educate the next generation? It's great me standing up in front of corporate people in the thought 30s and 40s and 50s. But if I want to last in change and the proper change, you've got to talk to the younger generation, I think. So, and that's what I'm doing now. So I'm trying to help they all call me the antidote round to take and all these schools I go to. And yeah, I wouldn't have gone where I am now without that second chance. You know, I don't know where I would have been now. Probably drinking up the Rebel Club every weekend, doing not wasting my life, probably to be honest. What did the show teach you about yourself? It taught me really what was really important to me, and that was connection to myself, connection to my loved ones, and to take my story to the wider world. And yeah, I was looking around the room, I took photos of my family up to Scotland with me, and I had photos all my room, and I was talking to my photos every night. I thought I was going mad. I saw a psychologist come to my room every couple of days, and I'd say to her, Am I going mad? I'm talking to my photos. And she goes, No, that's good. You're getting it off your chest, you're talking to them. And I said, That's what's really important to me. And they know I'm really not a lion, deceitful, a cheat. They know I'm really what I'm really like. I said, and that's what's important to me. They're gonna love me if I come first, last. They don't care. Do you mean that's what's really important to me? So when I was on the show, I kept it's just a game at the end of the day, and it's an intense game, it is an intense game, but I did a lot of work on myself a couple of years before that, so I don't think I would have gone on the show if I wasn't really ready mentally, I don't think. But I was in a good place strength-wise, mentally, to go on the show to be able to handle it. But I was quite lucky, I didn't really get challenged or anything at the round table, so I was quite lucky I didn't get into prender any pressure.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

But if for somebody so honest, the premise of the show is deceit.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

That's why I was rubbish, that's why I didn't win. I was too I mean £95,000 better than off now. If I was, I'm not better than that at all. Who wants £95,000? Yeah, who wants to be? I'd be in the Caribbean, I'm not sat in rain in Wales, but no, but I no I I'm not I wasn't, I was just a nice person on the show. I was too honest. Like perhaps I could have won it if I was a deceitful liar. Not saying Harry's a deceitful liar, but maybe I was people saying you were too nice and too honest. And I said I'd rather be known for being too nice and honest than a liar, to be honest with you. So yeah, I struggled. When I got changed from a faithful to a traitor, if you ever watched the show, you could see I really struggled with that decision, but at the end I I tell them this is a game at the end of the day. To me, I'm not really a deceitful liar, a traitor. I mean people who know me think I'm a nice person, I think. So yeah, it was just a game. So yeah, it was tough though when I had to change. Did the experience change how you think about trust? I give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I treat everybody exactly the same. I don't care. I've always been the same, man. I've looked at me in a body garden in London looking after lots of celebrities, and I'll treat you the same if you're a janitor, a cleaner, than if you're a multimillionaire. I met billionaires over the year. People are just people at the end of the day. We come in the world the same black, white, boy, girl, and then through different environments, learning experiences, and we've got on different paths to mean and different traumas in life. I say, we're all we all go out the same, and we all come in the same, we all go out the same at the end of the day. That's a bit in the middle as a story, I suppose. But I treat everybody exactly the same. So, you know, I see people who are non-nice people, but I always try and think now. I'm trying to be compassionate, thinking, what's going on in their life? Why are they like that? Is there a reason they're like that? Nobody's born racist, nobody's born homophobic, or nobody's born that way. We're all born with pure balls of leather as a child, blank canvases, and then through different environments and traumas, we go on different paths, don't we? So I think I I when I see people, I always give them treat them all exactly the same. Until they upset me or do something against me, I tr I treat everybody the same, really.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Coming back to what you said about young boys, I think you're onto something incredibly powerful there. Because when I met you, it was in the FAW box, you were on a security detail. A friend of mine was there attending the hospitality with his son, and he had every Welsh player in the room. The only person he was interested in was you. And that's the power of the traitors and how you stood. That's all you spoke about all the way home. You obviously have an audience there which you need to really cultivate. And I think the antidote to the Tate person is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Yeah, there's these programmes that come out now, and you know, the man inside the manosphere with Louis Threw. That's been that was on recently, and then the other one was called Um Adolescence. Yes. Stephen Graham, really powerful documentary. But I think it's great. Anything to raise pro raise awareness is excellent. But I think in this it's quite sad. It's taking up two programs for people to wake up. I said I've been seeing that for years. That's what your people, that's what kids are looking at. And I think parents, they say about social media, blaming social media companies. They have got a they have got a step up, I gather. But I just think it's not people controversial. I think some parents gotta do a better job, they've got to look at themselves in the mirror. It's not blaming everyone else. They parents blame the teachers in school, blame the social. No, know where your kid is looking at, first of all. And a lot of parents haven't got a clear what their kids are looking at on social media.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

No, parental candidates are.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

And I know it's hard, you can't be with your child all the time, but you most people just let give their kids their iPad and just offer it. You've got to know where your kids are looking. Kids are watching stuff like this on social media, and I've spoken to these kids in these schools, and I'd be the college, university, and some nice private schools. And I've been to them 51 schools I've been to and colleges and universities, every single one I've been to, and I've been to some nice ones, I've got a problem with misogyny, and that blows my mind. I didn't know what the word meant when I was in school, but now I spoke to a headmistress last week in a nice school, and she said to me, if I tell a boy off in a corridor, he'll ignore me. But if a male teacher comes and says exactly the same, you listen to him, and that's mad. And I I just think that's crazy. And I think, yeah, honestly, it's it's frightening, and that's in lots and lots of schools, all the schools I've been to, and it's scary. And I and I'm trying to go into these schools, trying to show I do workshops on misogyny, discrimination, and as well. Like, so yeah, but it's quite frightening. Some of the things I hear the boys saying, and I say to these boys, would you be happy if that was your mother, your sister, or your girlfriend and you said that? Well, no, I was exactly well, don't say it then, and that's a good measure. I say, if they all think it is saying or doing something, quickly think, would I be happy if it's my mother or my sister? And normally I said no. I said, Well, don't do or say what you're gonna say then, or don't do it. And that's the way I say this quick thing to measure your what you're gonna say, I think, to people. But yeah, some of the things they say, you know, oh, she's an eight out of ten, you know, you know, rating girls and things like that. And you know, I I think you know, would you be happy if I was your mother and they somebody rated her a two out of ten? Well, no, exactly. Wouldn't be with you, so it's not fair. Like we're all exactly the same. Boy, girl, there's nobody better than anyone else. We're all equal. Boys need girls and girls need boys. We all need to work together. I know the world's a tough place out there. Do you mean it is a hard place, and we need to work together to help each other and support each other, not work against each other. And I'm trying to get everybody together, no matter what colour is, why your creed, your religion, your race, take the labels of everyone. We're human beings at the end of the day. We're on this planet for a short space of time on this huge lump of rock floating on this universe, we're so insignificant, just have a nice life. Don't I don't care if you're black, white, green, god, Allah? We're all just human beings, work together and take the labels of everyone. And I think that's just make life easier. And people say you've got such an easy outlook on life. It can be. We just complicate it, I think personally.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

So was it difficult to adjust um to a normal life after a period of such intense fame of the traitors?

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, it was. They try and prepare you for it, but I they can't really prepare you for it. But I, as you can tell from this podcast, I love a chat. So um, you know, when you're out in Cardiff for four months isn't before it's released, you go back into your normal day jobs as if nothing's ever happened. And then once it's on the telly, I think mine was on January, February time. You're out honestly, it's just incredible. Constantly getting people come up to you, come up to you, getting photos. You're trying to, you're out having a meal with someone, and you know, can I have a photo? Can I have a photo? Can I have a photo? And can I have a nice period? I love talking to people and I it's fun. I think it's fun. I think it's fun. I'm not a celebrity, I'm a normal down-to-earth guy from the council estate in the valleys. I know where I come from. I'll never change. So I think it's funny. And people say to me, they message me on Instagram, hope you had a nice coffee with your son. They go, why don't you just come and talk to me? Oh, I got starstruck. Oh, I'm just a normal guy. I'll never they say you're normal in real life. I said I wasn't playing a character on the telly, I was playing myself. I'm just me, I'm a normal guy, I'll never change. I still shop in Aldi's. I won't go to wait. I'm still a normal person, it hasn't changed me at all. And but it is crazy, it is hard for some people to adjust to that. But yeah, you get the you know, they all think come out the woodwork, people come out of the woodwork trying to spread gossip and rumours on you, which nobody ever sees all that side of things, and that can be, but I know I'm a good person deep down at the end of the day, and I know, yeah, I'm not perfect, I'm far from perfect. I hold my hands about you know I've made mistakes in the past, but who hasn't made mistakes in the past? It's what they focus on, unfortunately. Yeah, and before you go on there, they do a massive deep dive on your social media, on on everything. I had to go back all the way back. We had Facebook 15, 20 years ago, delete everything off there. Like there was jokes I was saying to my mates about different things about, you know, I said jokes to them, they say, Yeah, the press will pick that up, they'll scrutinize you and they'll just ruin you on it. So I had to go through but delete all my posts, delete all my not that I was saying horrible things on there, but just banter with the old-fashioned banter, I suppose, my mates some years ago, and that delete all that, and yeah, things come out, you know, people come out of the woodwork and say things about you and that. And did I mean silly? I did silly when I was young, I was rugby boy doing stupid things, I suppose. But yeah, that's right. Again, it's a learned behaviour, and I'm compassionate myself. I didn't know any different. So I was around them men, you know, naked on the pool table, dancing and doing stupid things in pubs and that. Do I mean? But I thought that's the type of environment I was in. I grew up in. Like it was only when I held that mirror up to myself a few years ago. I now understand. No, no, I'm not saying I regret it, I don't regret anything in my life, really. I know it's made me the person I am today, and I can now help use my experience and my journey to help give back to other people now.

SPEAKER_01 31:01

In 2024, you walked 750 miles from Scotland to Wales. Why? Yeah, yeah, why? Uh, for headway with the the brain injury charity. Where did that idea come from?

SPEAKER_00 31:14

I was lying in bed one night and I had some epiphany moment, one of my crazy ideas. I thought, I want to do a challenge. And I said, you know, I'll start in the traitors castle in Scotland, up the top of Scotland, Ardrosp, Stunning Castle, and finishing Cardiff Castle. That was all it was going to be, first of all. And then I brought the company on board called Challenge the Wild. They they do all the planning, logistics, they deal in big events. They work with Ant Middleton, a lot of big celebrity TV stations, and they did a lot of that. I got on really well with Dan, he's the founder and the owner of it. And I said about his challenge, and he came on board and he he plans out all the route and everything. And and he and I said, um, he said, Why didn't you go to Lancaster Castle as well? I haven't got a thing for castles, it was just like, I don't know. And he said, We'll go to Lancaster. Yeah, yeah. It's on the way, he said. It's on the way, you walk in through Lancaster, stop by Lancaster Castle. Yeah, great. And then I was in, I I had a thought, I thought, let's go to Ireland as well. So I rang Dan up. I said, Dan, I know you've planned the route already, but can we change it? And he said, What do you want to do now? He said, You know, can we go to Ireland? He said, What? Ireland? I said, Yeah, why not? You know, I go to all I go to England, uh Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, that's the four home late and why he said, Yeah, okay then. So he went to Carrick Fergus Castle, Northern Ireland as well. So yeah, it was like 1,200 kilometres, just over 1,200 kilometres. But I did it for people out there who are battling demons, who think they can't do something, they're not good enough, you know, struggling in mental health. You can do it. Just keep believing in yourself, work hard, strong yourself for good, supportive people, and you can't accomplish, say, anything in life. You can't be the president of America, but you can accomplish anything in life you want. And to be told I never walk ever again 26 years ago or 24 years ago to now walk in there is a huge achievement for me. So I did it really people out there trying to help other people to support all them people out there, really. And obviously to raise money for the Brain Energy Association Headway.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

What was the hardest day?

SPEAKER_00 32:54

The first day thinking, why I sat, I looked at the target, 1200. Oh my god, why the hardest day they were I I hurt my knee a few weeks into it, I think about a week into it, really bad, and they were gonna pull the challenge. And Dan said to me, You've got to stop, you can't do any more. And I said, No, I don't think so. I'll show you resilience now. So I walked the rest. I walked, I think I only done about um a couple hundred kilometres then after that. I was in still in Scotland, I think. I'd just come over the border into England, and I hurt my legs, it was agony, it really hurt it bad. And I just limped the first, but then I I luckily we found a physio up in Liverpool actually. I found a physio in Liverpool on a Saturday afternoon, luckily, because it was all the football on and everything. So we found a physio. She massaged me and she said, Your calves, your hammer, rock hard. She goes, You stretching, not doing anything. I haven't done any, it's my own fault. And I train all my time, I don't do any stretching when I get back to the room. I just I'm just really tired after my every day. I just want to just chill out and relax. So yeah, so luckily I managed to do the rest of it then anyway. But that was the hardest day, and I thought, oh, I can't quit this channel. It's taking us months to plan it, so I can't do it. I had all this sponsorship money and everything, and I don't want to let anybody down, really. So I proved they're resilient. You can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Yeah, my my cards are like guitar strings, which are not good. I have to work hard because I'm a cyclist.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

What kept you going? How much difference I was making to people out there, I think the money I was raising, because I've seen firsthand the work the headway do, you know, on brain injury, not just the patients and the people who've experienced it, but their family as well, the siblings and their family, because it doesn't just impact that person, it's a ripple effect on the whole the workplace, the emergency services, the the family, it's a huge ripple effect. And nobody ever sees that. That's the same with anything, not just brain injury, you know, cancer, bereavement, all these different things, the ripple effect, the ongoing effect it has on it. So I've seen firsthand the work they do, you know, it's it's amazing the work they do. So um, and I didn't use them after my brain injury because I never heard about them, and I wasn't really offered any help or support after it. And I love the NHS, and I mean I'll I'll say I'll never get a bad word spoken about them. They save my life, and I know people slag them off, they've got their issues, but it's the people at the top of the NHS that are making the problems. The people on the ground, they work so hard. I've seen them in the hospitals working 12-hour back-to-back shifts. They prepare so much in the hospital, and that's what they do. They make sure it's okay, you know, safe to go home. But then the aftermath, so I didn't really use headway, but I've done a lot of work with them over the last couple of years, and I've seen more the work they do firsthand. So I wanted to raise money to help change the lives of the families and the brain injury survivors, really. So that's what kept me going. Mental health's a massive thing for me, you know. So helping people who are struggling with demons and you know, maybe want to look at maybe taking their own life and putting a plan in place and I, you know, don't do it, you know, you can then help out there.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

My family's had the benefit of headway, and um it's often not understood that it's a hidden injury. And you see behaviour in a cafe or somebody might have a frontal lobe injury and they're being a bit bit erratic or irrational, and people don't see it. How how do you deal with it? And how does your brain injury manifest itself?

SPEAKER_00 35:43

I was quite lucky. Physically I'm recovered quite fully, but I think I had terrible mood swings. I was really up and really high and low. My mother and father say to me after we had this conversation a couple of years back, used to have terrible mood swings up and down, I was really, really high or really low, and you know, up and down all the time and everything. And I don't know if it's part of my brain. I've never seen any neuropsychologist really low, ever no never any brain scans done. So I damaged the left side of my brain. I think that's the side of my brain who works with emotions and feelings and that. So that's perhaps why I was like I was to be honest. You know, it's quite sad. Like I wish I'd had, you know, maybe seen a psychologist or a counsellor many years before. It might have helped my relationships and my loved ones, my family, my friends. But they said I had terrible mood swings now. So I've had to work really hard on myself over the last three or four years, I suppose, and study of so much studying and reading over the last couple of years, understanding my moods and myself. And I've worked really hard. And on my I'm quite proud of myself actually, how far I've come over the last couple of years. You should do. Yeah, I'm really, I'm really proud. I'm a different person now, and a better version of myself now, really, than I was a few years back. But yeah, it's about you know, it's not gonna sit here and say it's easy, it's it's bloody tough to work on yourself and working hard, especially when you're gonna real help outside of support. And yeah, I I've come a long way now. And I I try and instead of react to situations, I try and respond. So when you react, you know, that's normally normally a good thing. The red mist comes down, you try and react. So what I say to people now is about the chimp mind and the human brain and things like that. I say, your chimp will react straight away. My chimp run my life for 45 years, I think. I used to fly off the handle, say and do things, but now I try and get my human brain to kick in much quicker, my logical human brain, and respond to a situation. So you respond, you have a much better outcome. It's like an adult brain talking. So I try and take myself away from the stimulus. If somebody upsets me or makes me angry or whatever, I try and take myself away, think about it, think there's any evidence to support what they're saying. No, it's normally not, and then go back and respond. So I have much better conversations with my loved ones, my partner, my friends, and my family. So yeah, it's been working on myself, and it's getting better and better. So my human brain kicks in much quicker. Before it used to kick in months ago, months later, my chimp would kick in, my human brain would kick in days later, I think. But now my human puts my chimp back in his box within a couple of minutes, I think. So it's getting much better. That's taking practice over the years. That has.

SPEAKER_01 37:48

I try to count to ten, but I get to three normally. But I put a little buffer in there, yeah, you know, just to diffuse the situation. But you're right, and because I was tested for the warrior gene years ago, and I have the warrior gene, and I do descend from the princes in the north, apparently, for my genealogy. So I'm a fight, not flea. Yeah. So I have to you have to identify your nature, your your nature, alpha male, gonna get in there, gonna sort it out. And it takes a lot to step back and say, hang on a minute, that's not the best and wisest route.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Soft though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Oh, tell me about it.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

I couldn't back down from anything. I've always been brought up in that environment again. My dad, my broad, he would never walk away from trouble, he would never back down, and that was me. I'd never back down from every somebody's just wanted, I would never back down. But now I'm I'm told, I think I'm really I'm a lover now, a fighter now. I control it now. Don't get me wrong, if I ever had to protect my family or my my son or my brother, my love, anybody I really care about, I'm not I I would like I would, but now I'd rather walk away. I said, work in security, for example, for many years, and people say to me, Oh, you're never in trouble, you never fight. When are we ever gonna see? I said, Who wins? It's not nobody wins. Said, I'd rather diffuse the situation by talking to someone, which you can do most of the time. Yeah, I worked in the corporate world for 30 years in bank and insurance, so I'm I'm not a stupid person. I like talk to lots of people, building lots of relationships. I love talking and building, so I'd rather do that on the doors and take my skills I learnt in bank and insurance into my security world as well and diffuse the situation and have a laugh at the end, trying to end with a laugh as well. Imagine you're brilliant at it. Who wins at the end of the day? I said, they go in with blood on their shirt, I go in blood on my shirt. They don't I don't get paid any extra money for knocking someone out or putting somebody out of the I said, I'd rather just talk about it and talk about it, and that's what I've always done to be honest. I thought it was good at my security job because I diffuse things at the end of the day, and that's what I'd rather do. But it's taking me years and years of practice. If I was me in my 20s, I wouldn't have done that.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

No, well, I hate to say it, I was the same. Um so back to the walk, what was it like to reach Wales?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Oh, it was amazing, it was amazing, and it was such a good feeling, and I do I'd love to do it again. The feeling I had, I was present. And I say when I do my talk, I said in this world these days, we're always so busy rushing round, we're constantly in our fight and flight, in our sympathetic nervous system, which is not healthy. I said that you know, I was so present. I was walking, I didn't listen to my headphones, so 42 days it took me. I was in nature, in mountains, it was priceless. I wasn't thinking about money, work, relationships, stress. I wasn't driving, I was just so relaxed. I was it was it was so beautiful. And I was walking every day with guys, and it was it was stunning. And um, my average rest in heart rate when I started was 69. Within two weeks, I went out to 46. It stayed at 46 for six weeks or five or six weeks, back up to 69 again now because I'm driving on rushing busy all the time. And I say, you know, yeah, it was an amazing feeling, but also the man who saved my life, Professor Lane, was at the end. I didn't know he was going to be there. They got it as a surprise, they managed to contact him. He's at the end of my walk, so he told me 26 years ago or 24 years ago I wouldn't walk ever again. And he's at the end of my walk in Cardiff Castle. We got into walked into Cardiff Castle and didn't realise his partner was my main physio. I only found that out three years ago when I met him, so she taught me to walk again, he saved my life. So between them, they're like a power couple in the medical world, like the Porsche and Bex in the medical world, you know what I mean? And I didn't know that, but he's such a humble man, and yeah, to be at the end of my walk, I walked into the castle and he was there. I thought I just started crying, and my family there, my friends, then it was just an amazing achievement. I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 41:06

What is strength in you? Why that name?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

I genuinely believe every single person in this world has got strength inside them to overcome obstacles in life when they're faced with a life-changing pivotal moment. They might not know what it is at the moment, they might not know what it is, but they have every got something, they got something inside them to achieve great things in life. Whatever that is, you can. I think you've just got to work hard, believe in yourself, and surround yourself with good, positive people. Because in life, unfortunately, and especially in Wales, there are people out there, a lot of jealous people out there who try and drag you backwards, and there's a tall poppy syndrome. When you start doing well, they're cheering you on. When you get to the top and start doing well, then they think, oh, look at him showing off and that's all things. I want to drag you back. I love being Welsh, I'm really patriotic and that. But going to London quite regularly over the last couple of years or two years now, the thought to go to London two years ago is scary. You know, Valley's or London, oh, it's really scary, and I'm not going to London. My mother said to me, watch out for them terrorists. Oh man, they're not all terrorists in London. Do you know what I mean? But still watching the news all the time. But that was me growing up and the thought of going, I love going to London now, but you want to go to London, it's just a different mindset and that. And until you've experienced it, it's hard. When you're in Wales, it's like you're born in a bit of a bubble with a glass ceiling on you. And let's say a glass ceiling on you, it's hard. Like when you want to try and get out to the valley, try and get out of Wales. You know, if people haven't done that, they think, oh, look at you, go to London now, who do you think you are? And I think, well, nobody really. People who were really super successful, move out to Wales, a lot of them, make their money, whatever, then come back to Wales and retire, I think. But I can understand now who've been out to Wales quite a lot over the last two years. I can see what people mean now when they say it.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Well, I lived the tall poppy syndrome, and it's a fact, it's a scientific fact in the field. If a poppy goes for it with the sun, the other poppies will snarl it and pull it back down again. And the same with lobster pot theory, you know, the lobsters all in a pot and one tries to go for it, the other lobsters will pull it back down, level it. And I think it comes from our sort of Methodist or in religious background, you're not supposed to say you're anything special. And I had a lot of that in my upbringing, you know, and I struggle with it most days. I think it's good to have that self-checking as well. Who do you think you are?

SPEAKER_00 43:01

You get a lot of that with it's good, but I'm I know I don't think of anything different than what I am I was five years ago. Six years ago, I meet these people and go to Buckingham Palace, and again, I don't people are people. I met the king, I shook his hand, yeah. Great, he's the king, and I respect him who he is, but to me, I'm he's no better than me. He's no better, I'm no better, nobody's better than anyone else in this world. And I think what you're doing sometime with the you know, where you where you where you're from and that, he holds a mirror up to them people who they're too scared to do you're doing something they will never want, they don't want it, they're not brave and courageous to do it. And I was one of them people a couple of years ago. I was sat there doing the same thing, work hard all week, drunk on the weekend, and you know, I go up to see you know at the local place where I go, local pub, and they're sitting in the same chair saying the same stories they were 10 years ago. I think, you know, I've grown so much more to the life now. I'm I'm compassionate to them, they don't know any different. Whereas I I want, you know, you go you only have one chance as life. You know, there's no Andrew Jenkins part two of the sequel. This is my life now. I want to make it the best life I can. You know, you know, I want to look back in like 30, 40, you look back and think, oh, what a what a good life. You know, I made the best the best of it. Up until a couple of years ago, what would I have done? I don't know. You know, working in the corporate world, rat racing, you know, slogging my gut start, working hard, earning this money. I don't earn anywhere near as much as I did years ago. But my heart and my soul feel better than I ever have. I'm helping people, inspiring people. And I I was at the top of this ladder a couple of years ago, but it wasn't my ladder. I'd look at it, I'd look in the mirror every now and again. I'm thinking, I'm still where am I going to be happy? I was I got everything in life that I was told from a young age, what life is, what happiness is, but I'm still not happy. It was because it was everybody else's ladder, my mother and father's ladder, my friend's ladder, my expectation, not my ladder. I'm at the bottom of my own ladder now, creating the life that I want, making my dream and creating my life the way I do it. And it's hard. Don't get me wrong, it's different, it's challenging sometimes. Building a business and trying from the scratch, it's difficult. I'm not gonna sit here and say it's easy, it's really hard, but nobody sees that. And if people say building a business is is easy, they're lying. They've either had rich parents or they've been left to business by their family or they're lying. Because it's tough. And I've got a bit of a profile to be honest, not a big one, but I find it really, really hard. It's difficult to mean, but I love it. I know I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm glad I made that decision, and I'm gonna keep on doing it.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

I love the ladder analogy, I think that's brilliant. And I would go and see your movie anytime. I'd buy a ticket, I'll take my mates. Um, where do you see people struggling most these days?

SPEAKER_00 45:10

Communication is really tough, and there's a lot of isolation, loneliness is a massive problem. There's so many issues at the moment, and I think with social media doesn't help that either because you're so you're people looking at social media all the time and you're comparing yourself to somebody's high-light reels of their life. And I think people don't know, you're sat in a normal house with your normal job, your normal body, your normal life, thinking everybody's got a Lamborghini, every's got a mansion with a simple on the roof of their house with a six-pack. I think they haven't. You're looking at 2% of the world's population, and the more you're looking at it, because of the algorithm, the more it's going to show you because you're constantly being kept low down there, thinking your life is rubbish. I said they haven't. I've been involved in social media a lot over the last two years. I've been to the BAFTAs, the NTAs, red carpet events. I look at a magazine the next day or two days later, I think, they didn't look like that. That didn't happen like that. You know, my life looks amazing on social media, but I don't put on there every I'm quite like to think I'm quite authentic and real, but I don't put everything on social media. Do you know what I don't put on there where I'm crying, my relationship ended, you know, I don't put on there my financial stresses, I don't put all that on social media. And I think I'm gonna start putting that on there because I want to be known as a real authentic person. You know, people look, oh, your life is amazing, it's brilliant. I don't put on their sleepless nights, the stresses and the worries I get. I don't put that on my social media. So I say people stop, don't believe everything on social media. I know people are gonna not stop looking at it, they're gonna keep on looking at it, but take it with a pinch of salt. And in the fitness world, for example, there's people on there, you know, sat on their yacht in Marbella, I get up at four o'clock every morning, I meditate for an hour, I do my yoga for an hour, I go to the gym for an hour, I read a book all before nine o'clock in the morning. Bullshit. Do they really? I said, great, if they can do it, but you've got two screaming kids in the house, you've got a full-time day job, you can't copy what they're doing. I said, what they're saying is good, but you've got to try and fit that in around your busy lifestyle, around your two screaming kids in the house, around your full-time day job, try and fit that in around your busy lifestyle. You know, Mark Wahlberg, great, he gets up at four o'clock and trains. But he's Mark Wahlberg. We are not Mark Wahlberg, and he's in a great position to do that. I said, if you train at six o'clock in the night or four o'clock in the morning, it doesn't make it any better. You're still training. Just because you can't do it at four o'clock in the morning, doesn't mean you're rubbish, you're not doing it right. Just try and do what you can do. But don't beat yourselves up. We're also hard on ourselves, we're all striving, striving for the next thing, striving for this thing. We're searching for this thing called happiness and fulfillment. But that comes in here. We're led to believe it's all external stuff. But people chasing this happiness outside, going on these holidays all the time, doing these things all the time. They're trying to fix something inside here. And that's never ever gonna happen. And I did that for years, smashing myself in the gym. When I get that good body, I'll be happy. I got a good body, didn't change me. We need to start looking inwards and working on ourselves, not stop looking for outside things to try and fix our problems. That could be a marriage, a dead-end job, you hate the job you hate. You've got to look inwards and find out what's causing these problems inside us. But social media is a big problem these days, and yeah, we're looking we're isolating. And as a human species, we're built for connection. We love connecting with people, we're going away from that. And when I worked in insurance, I'd ring somebody up and say, Oh, your policies do for renewal in three months' time, a big construction company paying like £60,000 a year for their insurance policy. Can I come and see you? What? You want to come and see me? Yeah. What in my office? Yes. Can we draw on the phone? No. You deserve it, you pay £60,000 a year, you're two miles on the road. Can I come and see you? And teams in Zoom have got a place. But to build a connection and relationship, I'd rather I'm old-fashioned, I suppose. I'd rather speak to people and come and see people. Yeah, in the future, I have to build that relationship, then do teams in Zoom. But if to blow their mind, well come to my office and see me. Yes. Well, have a cup of coffee and chat. Or can't we draw the no, no, I'll come and see you in your office like a mile away or two miles away. But I think as a human species, we've gone so far away from connection, I think, as well.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

Yeah, yeah. We have to take social media with a bucket of salt. I mean, you know, um, we're all guilty of it as well. What does the word maverick mean to you? And do you see yourself as one?

SPEAKER_00 48:55

I think maverick is being brave and courageous to live your life and be authentic and go out there and chase your dream. And you know, if you see some wrongdoing and you want to you want to make a difference to the planet, make a difference to the world, make a difference to people's lives, basically. And I think I'd like to think I'm making a difference to make an impact on the world because all I want to do is lie on my deathbed, wherever that's gonna be, God hopefully a long way away. I want to lie on my deathbed bed and close my eyes, knowing the difference to this planet. If I read a book, I wrote a book, for example, the first couple of chapters of my story would have been boring. But I want to make sure the ending of my book is really good. I want to make sure that ending in my book is brilliant. I want to make impact so many lives and help change lives, save lives. And all I try and do is break lots of stigmas. I'm not some academic genius or a guru that gets up at four o'clock and meditate. I'm not that person, I'm a normal, down-to-earth guy. But if I can change, and it's not easy, anybody can change it. With neuroplasticity, you can change the way you are, you can change the way your brain is rired. So people say, Oh, that's the way she is, that's the way he is. No, if they want to change, they can change, they've got to want to change, but they can do it. And I think, yeah, maverick is being brave enough to go out there and chase what you believe in, and you know, and that's what I think. I like to think I am doing that now.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

You are 100% maverick. I think you would be on this show. Thank you. So I just want you to own it, that's all.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

Good. I'll call myself a maverick. I'll change my LinkedIn profile later. Tidex speaker now I put on there now, and I'm Maverick as well. You know, uh, what keeps you grounded? I I don't know, I'm not my background, my upbringing, I suppose, and I'll never forget my personal harm or where I've come from, my friends, and yeah, I've never gone a I don't care, I've ever been big-headed, I've never been that type of person. I'm I'm not better than anyone, to be honest. I'm the same as anyone. And yeah, it's just having that realisation and taking stock every now and again, sitting down and thinking, taking a breath and thinking, yeah, I'm doing okay in life, and also making sure I take time for myself, spend time with my loved ones, my family, doing the things that are important to me, and you know, going for walks in nature, nature's my medicine. And again, I think that's one of the biggest causes of issues in the world these days. We've gone so far away from nature, and like everything that I do for my own mental well-being and mental health has been on for thousands of years, you know, meditation, yoga, pilates, breathwork, walking in nature. We're not reinventing the wheel, they've been on for thousands of years because of technology and all these things, we've gone so far away from it. And they said 85% of our time years ago is spent outdoors. Now it's less than 7%. And that blows my mind. We're stuck in rooms, in buildings, in cars. I think get outside. Like in Japan, they prescribe forest bathing from depression. In this country, we give you pills. I think if you're struggling with anything, I'm not saying it's easy, go out, get out for a walk. A 20-minute walk in nature is scientifically proven to help you. Get outside, get some vitamin D on your face, some serotonin, and go for a walk. And that sounds easy, not maybe 42 days, don't walk that long, but walk for an hour or two, get outside. And if I haven't been for a walk for a couple of days, I could feel it differently myself. So it's doing the things that I like the keep Andrew saying, and keep Andrew on the on the ground, I suppose. And I lost that for a while after the come after the trait because I was so busy all on the country, driving here then everywhere. I was exhausted and I was turning up uh interviews and shows. I wasn't I wasn't the real person, I wasn't in the people weren't getting the best version of me. But now I make sure my pillars have to happen every day or every week. I got a routine every day I do, every morning, a bit of routine, and that happens every single morning without fail. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

What is the routine?

SPEAKER_00 52:06

This might sound a bit hippie and woo-woo, but I get up in the morning, I do some meditation, I do a bit of gratitude, saying I'm worthy, I'm or I do my gratitude every morning, a couple of minutes every morning. At the start, I found it, I found it, I thought it was nonsense. And then people think you do it, and all of a sudden you've got to see huge changes. But it's like everything, it's consistency, you've got to do it over and over again. You start believing it then. And I love reading about frequencies and vibrations, I love reading that last couple of years, I love reading all stuff like that. It's true. We are made up of atoms, and it's true. So every morning, I go downstairs then with nothing on my feet, standing in the garden, grounding myself, getting some sunlight, drinking some water, because first of all, we know we open our eyes, scroll on social media, black coffee. You know, black coffee is a diuretic, it dehydrates you, and your body is made up of water. So you've been lying on your back for seven, eight hours, go downstairs, drink coffee, you're dehydrating yourself even more. So I used to be the first one to drink two cups of coffee every morning, black coffee. So now I drink water, trying to hydrate my body again, stand outside, get some sun on my face, and for 10, 15 minutes, not long, 10, 15 minutes, but it sets me up for the day then. And I say to people, you are gonna face challenges for your day, it's inevitably gonna face some challenges. But if you set yourself up in the morning ready, you can face them challenges head on and overcome them, hopefully. Then, but if you set yourself up in the morning, you rush in, you say, Oh, open your eyes, you're stressed, you're late. Them challenges come along. It's more stress and more hassle then. But if you've got to set yourself in the morning, it takes 15-20 minutes, my routine in the morning. I try and I do exercise in the morning as well, but I know everybody can't do that. But I try and do them things every morning without fail out, and it's it's working, and it's it's taking me months and months to do it and get there, but I'm now feeling the benefits of it.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

The government's decision to ban social media under 16. You welcome that?

SPEAKER_00 53:43

No, I don't, I don't agree with it to be honest. I think again, that's no. They have got to they have got a with a democracy, what is it? Democracy, like we we've got free speech and freedom. You know, we should be parenting. We never had this problem years ago. I know social media won as big years ago, but again, like I said, I touched on earlier on. We've got to get better at finding out what our children are looking at. Yeah, social media has got a duty and they've got to stand up and be better, maybe. But I think we need to be better as parents, managers, leaders in the workplace to know what our people are looking at. I think, you know, banning things, it's like the same as anything. Drug who ban things is gonna be naughty, and I think if the kids are gonna want to try and get on, they're gonna find a way around it. They're not gonna be able to stop it, I don't think. Are you? You know, you know, how do you get how do you know people over 18 years of age, over 16 years of age? They come, you know, fake ID years ago and it's got a nightclub and everything's they got around that, didn't they? Fake money, fake everything. They get away around everything. So I think it's not gonna stop anything, really. And I think that's like you know, stifling people. And when I talk to parents now about children, I say, you can't stop your children doing anything at all. I said, the worst thing, if they come and tell you, the worst thing you can do is shout and scream at them. Because if you do, you've lost them, and they'll go in to be on your back. I work security in Cardiff and I see people off their nut on the weekends, and I know you know they're not just alcohol. And I speak to people, I don't tell them, it's not my business, you know, it's private or I do on the door security where I used to. Oh, my son would never do anything like that. I'm thinking, you have not got a clue what they're up to. I said, at least we met my son, we had that open conversation, he tells me everything. I know, and I say the worst thing you could do is shout to them inside and without be really angry and raging when they come to you and tell you. When they're gone, you can shout them both. But when they're there, try and be calm, try and put your chimp in his box, try and be calm and understand and listen to them. And if you're like that, then they'll tell you, they'll talk to you all the time, then. So I say, Yeah, just be there for your children. I say they're really lost at the moment, just be there for their children.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

You would welcome the Welsh government's call to move funding from the N from the health budget to sport and music, then?

SPEAKER_00 55:32

Yeah, I think sport's a big thing and it's a good way forward. I think it's a good way to build communities and start talking in rugby clubs. Now, people can start opening up and talking in rugby clubs, especially men. You know, women's sport as well is massive. Now it's great to see the rising women's sport in rugby football, all sports, women are doing really, really well in all fairness. You know, you know, I love watching the women's sport, and rugby's rugby is brilliant now. Women's football is is brilliant. They don't roll around crying on the floor like the men do in all fairness. The women get up and get on with it. Whereas men they like flip six or seven times, roll on the floor. But women don't do it. You know, women, in all fairness, they're tough, they get on with it, they give birth, they give children, so they they get on with things. But no, yeah, I think sport is massive, and I think that will help huge in all that all sports, really. So I love sport. I think it's really good to get the children involved in some sport.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Someone watching or listening to this may be struggling in silence. What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Please be brave and courageous and have that conversation, like I touched on earlier on. You know, why worry about and overthink about? There's always somebody to listen. And that's gonna be a professional, it could be somebody in the workplace, a friend, a family member, somebody you trust. And you know, be brave and have that conversation. I know you know it's hard when you're in a dark place. I was in a dark place for days sometimes, and it's like you're in a well, you're at the bottom of a well, you can see the light to the top of the well, but you just can't get up. You can't get up that well, and it's like the whole world is against you. They're not, but in your head, you think everybody's against you, you think there's nobody out there who listen, nobody to talk to, but there is. And I also say to people, if somebody comes to you and tries to talk to you, you should be honoured they've come to you. That's not the first thing, they haven't just thought about that moment. They've been thinking about that for days, weeks, or months. They finally plucked up the courage to come and talk to you. So be there for them. Don't try and don't throw that back in their face or spread it around the local canteen or the rugby club. Because that's if you do that, they won't come and speak to you ever again. You should be honoured they've come and talk, they've chosen you as the person they've trusted to come and talk to. So take that with you to your grave. So they told you something in private in confidence. You know, don't ever you know use that against them, don't chuck it back in their face and be vulnerable. If somebody tries to be vulnerable with you, don't ever chuck it back in their face. Because I've had it chucked back in my face before with someone. I told them honest, open things, and every time you had a disagreement with Rag, they chuck it back in my face all the time. But I never tell that person anything ever again, then.

SPEAKER_01 57:34

Andrew, thank you so much. I mean, what stands out in your story is not just that you survived, it's what you chose to do with that survival. You know, you rebuilt, you spoke, you've turned pain into purpose, and now you help other people find the strength in themselves, which I think is remarkable. And you know, I've had a similar journey to yourself with a close family member. Yeah, yeah. You'd have to rebuild their lives in a similar way. So, you know, you can probably relate to a lot of that conversation. That's all the start of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

You relate to an awful lot of it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:01

I want to get that message out there, and you're so open about it, which I think hopefully will help others, you know. Um, so for me, that is the mark of a true maverick.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Yeah, I help. I'm a normal guy, and people watching this think, well, just a normal guy, he looks like us, he sounds like us, he's a normal person, he's also an academic genius, or a normal guy, and I'm hoping like I can help people struggling.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

That was Andrew Jenkins, survivor, speaker, mental health advocate, founder of Strength in You Limited, and finalist on the traitors. His story reminds us that strength is not silence. Sometimes strength is speaking, sometimes it is asking for help, and sometimes it's simply taking the next step. If this conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if this is the kind of conversation you want every week, subscribe. We release new episodes every Monday at 6 p.m. on YouTube. See you next time on Inside the Maverick Mind.