This is an AI transcription, apologies for any typos.

something else then started. Our fans turned on me in a big way. What the hell did you do there bharden You could have add that

games have a funny way of getting into our psyche, whether it's a game of Monopoly, or the FA Cup Final, that can really alter our behaviour in ways that we wouldn't normally expect. And the bharden is the co founder of think unconventional, which is a successful social media and content agency that focuses on inclusivity. And standing out from the crowd. Like all of us, he was once 12 years old, and playing in a high stakes Cup Final against his football team rivals Castle Colts. It was a call October morning, and he was nervous. I

remember standing on the sidelines next to where all the crowd was where the family stood the parents, my dad was there. And the manager at the time was reading off the team sheet. And although I played most games, this was a big game. And I had no idea if I was gonna get picked, we had a full squad of 15 players. And I was looking at my dad from the sideline thinking, he's waiting to hear my name. And the manager then picked Ollie and goal Claygate, your left back bharden centre we pay. And I remember looking at my dad, and my dad giving me the reassuring nod. He was absolutely beaming with pride that his son had been picked for the biggest game of the season. So the team finished being picked on buzzing or want to get into position and get ready. The nerves were there. But the buzz of being picked was still very much with me. And I just wanted to get that first whistle that start in whistle done so that we could make a start. So the whistle goes and immediately Castle Colts are on it. I'm standing in position, ready for anything to happen. But in truth, I just felt like my midfielders would get hold of the ball. And I hoped they would get a tackling. So the ball didn't end up in our half, I started to feel scared. And I'll never forget number five in the middle of the park for Castle colts was Charlie Plummer. I'd never played against him. But I'd heard stories of his brilliance 12 or 13 years of age, the way that he played football, his strength, he was so much bigger than any of us. So Charlie's then in the middle of the park, he's got the ball, and I'm watching him. And he's shrugged off, one player shrugged off another player, and our players just couldn't get near him. He's taken it round our sent amid. And all of a sudden the fear starts to build as he's running towards me. And then then number nine, I knew he was quick, and I could just almost feel his breath behind me. I knew that if this ball comes through, I've got a fight on my hands. Charlie decides to feed the ball. The moment it leaves his left foot, I felt a sense of relief that he wasn't going to try and take me on. But then the next concern kicked in almost in a split second. It's a rare moment where Charlie plum has not put the ball on someone's toe. And it's coming towards me. And I can reach it. And I think I'm going to be the hero. I'm going to save this from being a goal. And everyone on the sidelines is going to be cheering because I'm going to boot it out. And then I decide in that split second. I'm just going to let this ball guy as I leave the ball, I turn around, but it's too late. The number nines on it like a shot. He runs towards the goal and smashes it in the top corner. And there's all the cheer things going on for him and their team. Something else then started. Our fans turned on me in a big way. What the hell did you do there? Barden you could have had that. And I just stood there listening to all the different voices from our fans. All of them negative all of them looking at me and placing blame. So then my attention turned to my fellow players. I could see the goalkeeper. He was a friend of mine, but out of my peripheral vision. I could see him running towards me. I knew what was coming. What the hell Barden you could have easily got that. And now we're one kneel down in one minute. At that point. I was as low as I could possibly be. I'm looking left and all the fans are one side. I'm looking right. And all the castle colts fans of the other side. Where can I run? I'm trying to find the exit. I'm looking left. I'm looking right. I'm looking straight ahead. I cannot be here for another 89 minutes. I've just made the biggest mistake And now I just need to go, I felt tiny. And then I hear it from the sidelines, then I hear my dad, the reassuring, you've got this son, forget about it move on.

It seemed like there was a lot of paralysis by analysis and your whole life can come down to decisions that you make. Whether they are providing benefits or decisions have led to something unfortunate in your life, and you've gone down the wrong path. That decision that day, has had a massive impact on your isn't it

more massive, but I still battle it now. I still used used to sit there paralysis by analysis. That quote massively resonates with me now because even my wife will say to me, when everything in the business needs to be perfect for me to move forward. And if it's not perfect, I'm in mental chaos all of the time. She'll say to me, you're overanalyzing it, sometimes you just need to do. And then think about it after, or worry about it after because actually, most of what we worry about doesn't actually happen. But it did teach me very much that I never wanted that feeling again, and that I made an error in judgement on that day. Because I avoided the fight. That's what it was, I avoided the fight. I was scared of First of all, I was scared of Charlie Plummer coming towards me with the ball. Because I knew he was better than me. And then I was scared of the fight with the number nine. In case I couldn't keep him away from the ball, or in case I have messed up the following pass. And I think a lot of that, also, even now, it comes out of a fear of losing. Like, I feel like I feel losing all the time. If I lose, I feel like I haven't done enough to be where that winner is. So I then beat myself up. It's no different in my business. If I come across someone that's a better creator than me, or they've got a bigger business than me and they started at the same time, or they've, I'll look at it. And I desperately want to be happy for those people, because that's the right thing to do. But there's a part of me that then isn't happy. But it's not about them and their success. It's about me, and the fact that I'm now on my own back going, you're not working hard enough. How was that happened? How have they grown more than you? How are they a better creator than you? Because you've been lazy, and you've not put the effort in. And that's me in a nutshell all the time. I

was listening to a podcast yesterday, and I've heard this show you've heard it as well. Comparison is the thief of joy. And we're always looking across what other people are doing. And if we feel like they are few steps ahead of us, then we think to ourselves, why am I not that that stage? I'm better than them. I've done this better than them. But they are where they're at. And we forget about our own journey and the journey in the process. Right?

Yeah, you do. And I have to be reminded constantly from my wife. You know, I I've always I've joked for years and said, I want to be an actor. I've always wanted to be an actor. And you know, I know it sounds funny. But I I've done sketches for social media and stuff like that, because I crave that recognition from others. And I know that the sketches that I do, and I know that people love them, and they get a lot of attention and stuff like that you can't do them all the time, because they take a lot of time. But my wife's constantly telling me all of the time, you're not running that person's race. Like they're not, they're not you, you're not them. There's stuff that you do that they don't. But you're your benchmark of success can often be skewed. Especially now with social media, our benchmark of success is often so wrong in life. And but it's a very dangerous trap to fall into. And I I do beat myself up about it all the time. And I think we've we spoke about it earlier that it comes back to that whole fight between ADHD and autism. It's a constant battle between the two in my mind, and actually right now I haven't found the solution. So then every day you you take on that fight and you get the work done. And you take those small wins in life, that get you through. But I don't know about you, Alex. But I look at people that that claim to be happy, that claim to be content in life and they day they promote that on social. And I look and I think how how is that possible? How will you that content in life, but I think that's a lot because I'm never content no matter what I achieved no matter how much we've got this children amazing wife lovely house, I'm never content never have been because I'm always okay the moment I settle on this I'm going to lose it and it's all everything's just gonna fall away. So I have to keep going, I have to keep pushing.

So if you're not content and you never are, what are you instead

on edge all the time, literally on edge all the time.

And it's interesting how our early childhood experiences can shape us, right? Because when you're saying you're on edge, I'm thinking back to the 12 year old centre back, the balls coming through and you decide not to kick it not to intercept. It's indicative of how you're managing your life right now with your with your kids, with your wife with your, with your business that the ball has been pinged through by Charlie Plummer, you know, the competitors in that the social media creates a space or doing certain things. It's like, Well, do you respond? Or do you just kind of let them do it?

Yeah, and nowadays, there's always a response. There's loads of people that I see every day that are hugely inspirational to me. And I watch them. And I think that's given me inspiration to do different things and to up my game and give me the kick up the ass sometimes, because when you're busy, you can get complacent with certain elements of your business. And anyone's guilty of that. But now, instead of letting the ball go, or letting the Creator steamroll, I look at that as a challenge. I think, okay, how can I how can I do better than that? How can I increase that? And will it all come off? Absolutely not. But I live my life in that constant pursuit of improvement, constant pursuit of improvement all the time, with what I'm doing professionally.

I've absolutely been in that place myself before. But I started to ask myself, where does that end? Where does it end? Because it's just constant. Then about the journey and the destination, there is no destination, right? And I suppose there's a lot of life that is that way. I mean, maybe the destination in terms of life is okay. You die. And that's that, and you're just on this, this journey. But that was causing me a lot of unhappiness in the past where I've just felt like I had to had to be better. Because then I would never have those times where you sit back and you smile at with sort of pride or fulfilment or contentment, of the things that you actually have achieved. Like, do you ever look back on some of the things that you've achieved in Gan, Weldon Barton, only

if prompt, I'm that person that secures a new client. And then I want to make sure that everything is right for that client, and we've got everything on boarded and that they're happy and we're delivering, but very quickly on moving on, very quickly on what Okay, what's next. And I think there's an element of the the ADHD in that, because you're always looking for the next kick. You're always looking for the next Hi. But I it's funny, you said that about where does it end? Because I thought about this the other day, and I looked at some of the biggest entrepreneurs, you know, I'm a big follower of Gary Vee. He was the one that got me into social media in the first place. I like watching Steven Bartlett's podcast, and I follow them as individuals, and I look at them and I think, for them, there's no end. I would honestly say if they if they came out and were genuinely honest, I bet they would argue they're never content. They're never content. And I agree with you though. It you sometimes if you're like that you don't look at the simple things in life. And I do I when we do simple things, and I put my phone down and I'm not working. I sit back after a day with the kids. And we've done really simple stuff like that. And we've enjoyed the simple stuff in life. And I think you know what, I just want more of this all the time. But then the reality of my world kicks in and I go, but I can't because I'm too obsessed with growing a business and making that as good as it can be. So those moments are really few and far between and if I'm honest Myself, I look at it and I think some some my friends, a lot of my friends, they would say, just being a good dad, a good husband having a job that they that they enjoy watching football at the weekend. That's enough. You know, they could die happy with that. A lot of my friends would say that. That to me is just so unfulfilling. And it's It's horrible to think that because I love my kids, I love spending time with my kids. Like I said, I love the simple things. But if in 40 years time I look back. And I haven't achieved more than that. At the moment at 43. I feel like that would have been a while

I can look at that, though. And I can look at these other people who are living that kind of life. And I can feel a sense of envy. I can look across at that and go you know what? You're enjoying the simple pleasures in life. If you can put a gun to someone's head and say, Are you genuinely content and happy with your life? And then they say, yeah, man, massive kudos to you. But I always wonder how many of those people could honestly say, they are fully contented with that, because a man's purpose is constant, it never shuts off. It's always running all the time. When

I was employed, I was much calmer than I am now. Because I came home and I didn't think about work, I had quite a relaxed atmosphere within work. Since starting the business. My it's almost like that inner explosion that was waiting to come out for years, has just gone off. And I look at my friends, I look at my friends. And I think the way they're so happy with the basic stuff in life. I look and go. But I do envy. I do envy you. I envy the fact that you are content with just taking kids to football on a Sunday, go into work Monday to Friday doing the job coming home few beers in the evening, friends round at the weekend. And you know, that's a whole nother story. But I look at that and I go. And for years, I looked at that and thought, what there's something wrong with me? Why do I not enjoy that? That that basic stuff? Why do I not enjoy that? Why do I not get a kick out of that. And then obviously, this year, it's kind of, I've learned more about myself. So I now understand why I don't enjoy that stuff. Or why I can't just sit back and enjoy the basic stuff in life is

it because you can look back at those times when you were 10 years old, 12 years old playing football and you felt two centimetres tall and you felt like your self worth was quite low, you wanted to run off the field. You weren't getting that recognition from people, then it's almost like you're trying to make up for it now because I've had those similar sorts of experiences to you playing football as a young kid. And when you talked about the crowd getting on your back, I remember being about 10 or 11 up and I was playing striker Saturday league game. And I never forgot what this parents said. And it was almost like a joke. But he was didn't say it that way. But it was probably a lot of dry humour involved. He said, Alex would be a good striker if he could actually score, which is obviously a joke, because that's the objective of a striker is to score goals. And when he's saying that he's not thinking that I'm going to be remembering that 26 years later, I'm going to talk about it on a podcast of that one line or two lines that he said that day. But that stuff stays with you. And that contributes to this feeling of lack of self worth that I've had over the years, you know, have a successful business podcast is doing fairly well. All these other trappings of recognition or achievement that I'm getting as an adult, is that to make up for the fact that I didn't get that level of recognition when I was 510 15 years old. And then there were many occasions where I felt like I'm less than everyone else. And then you comparing yourself to other people in your school, your teammates on the football field and so on.

100% everything I do. There's an error if it's not good enough. Everything. No matter how many clients tell me tell us that we're doing a great job. No matter how many people over the years have told me that I'm good at something. Everything I do isn't good enough. With

a lot of the episodes of stories of men that I record. At the end of it I often feel a sense of resolve around the stories that we have a feeling that we've kind of tied a knot on this bowl them Come on and share their experiences, I've often found a way of overcoming their burden or tribulations. But I feel like with Andy, some of that trauma that he experienced as a younger man continues to weigh quite heavily on his thoughts, attitudes and his behaviours. And he still thinks about that football match from the story, even 30 years later, wondering why he left that ball? And did he actually decide to leave the ball is the other question that was going on in my mind? Or is that the narrative that his mind has developed around the situation, because of the way he views himself? Never having done enough, never been good enough. And it's interesting, because I can imagine if you asked all the players that were on the pitch that day, do they remember this moment, they probably wouldn't remember it at all. But Andy was something massive in his life, it was a glaring error. And in the same vein, and they only realised years later, that actually his dad hadn't been applying all this pressure onto him as a young man. He'd been applying the pressure onto himself. And using his data as a vessel almost for his own anxieties around not being good enough. He had assigned thoughts and feelings on to his dad that his dad actually didn't have. And that only came to light years later, in retrospect, and he had undiagnosed ADHD at that time, and from personal experience as well, having dealt with the same thing, I know how much your mind can race, literally 24/7 There's no off switch. And I can see how you might have spiralled in this instance, and misread a situation due to this detriment. It was a simple error in judgement. And of course, we've all made mistakes. He continues to be a man who finds no satisfaction in his successes, or very little. And he's constantly striving for more. But more of war, will there be a time in his life when he can really sit back and think I've reached the summit. And I do remember him saying off camera. He's got this amazing family, a woman he loves to great kids. Beautiful house nice garden. And this is still not enough for him. He still wants more. And I'm seeing him constantly on LinkedIn, putting out great content getting tonnes of people who tell him, they love him, they love his content. But he's just constantly going for more and he's just not enough for him. And in that vein, he's certainly done a lot with his unconventional business. And then which suits him down to the ground. Do we ever really feel like we've reached the summit? I guess it's the old adage of life being about the journey and not the destination. But why if we take no satisfaction from the journey either, where are we left then? I certainly never feel like I've achieved my life's purpose. And do we ever and do you