Mike Jones @ Better Happy

[00:00:00] Ross: Hi there, and a very warm welcome to Season five, episode four of People Soup. It's Ross McIntosh here,

[00:00:06] Mike: I do think that it's two extremes. I think we've got life can be so much better now. We've got so much more opportunity than we've ever had and most of us, if we're honest, would not go back to being hunter gatherers. if it was offered to us now, you know, get rid of all your stresses that you have in modern life.

[00:00:20] Mike: This is what you're gonna go back to. By the way, if you, if you fall and break your leg, then you're just probably gonna die. And if you get a disease you're gonna die and there's no houses, you know, we probably wouldn't choose that so we can paint it in rose, tinted glasses, but. We have more opportunity now and more freedom to live our best lives, but we also have a hundred times as many things to worry and stress about and balance.

[00:00:39] Mike: So it's, it's extremes, you know, it's extremes like yes, you can be more happy. Yes. You can create more freedom. Yes. You can live the exact life you wanna live, but also you've got lots of decisions to make. You've gotta avoid process food. You've gotta avoid socially isolating yourself because you're pursuing the thing you're passionate about.

[00:00:54] Mike: So there's, chicken and egg almost. There's there's, pay Soupers. This is the first part of my chat with Mike Jones. He's the founder of Better Happy, and I always leave a conversation with Mike, feeling inspired and invigorated. I've called this episode, meet Mike Jones.

[00:01:08] Ross: Better Happy enables organizations to develop healthy, motivated, high-performing managers, safe from burnout, and as they say, when your managers thrive, your people and business thrive. In this episode, he openly shares the ups and downs of his fascinating career, which involves two tours of Afghanistan living in a Tibetan monastery and setting up his first startup a CrossFit gym. All of these experiences led Mike to create his highly successful business, better Happy

[00:01:37] Ross: People. Soup is an award-winning podcast where we share evidence-based behavioral science in a way that's practical, accessible, and fun to help you glow to work a bit more often, let's just scoot over [00:02:00] to the news desk because reviews are in for part three of my chat with Ter Tobias Mortlock. Fabian Little on LinkedIn, said a very engaging three-part and excellent final chapter, like Sweet Music to my. I love how your discussion so subtly navigates the benefits of collective mindfulness for individuals and organizations and the vision it provides for leadership.

[00:02:23] Ross: Rachel Leon LinkedIn said enlightening episode of the Excellent People Soup Podcast highlighting how mindfulness is much more than meditation and breathing, and advocating for the use of mindful communication within teams.

[00:02:35] Ross: Thank you so much to Fabian and Rachel. I'm so pleased you found it engaging and enlightening. that's exactly what we were going for. So, For now,

[00:02:45] Ross: get a brew on and have a listen to part one of my check with Mike Jones.

[00:02:56] Ross: Mike Jones, welcome to people soup.

[00:02:59] Mike: Hello, Ross. Thank you for having me

[00:03:01] Ross: Now, Mike, we are gonna find out a bit about you in this first part of our chat. And as you know, I've got this tremendous research department who've been doing a bit of digging about you. So with your permission, I'd just like to share with you what, what they've discovered. See if they've got it right.

[00:03:16] Ross: They don't always get everything right.

[00:03:18] Mike: as long as it's any of the good stuff.

[00:03:20] Ross: absolutely. So, so one of my research department unearthed, they say Mike Jones is the founder and owner at better happy making happiness in the workplace. A reality by training managers and leaders in health and happiness. It sounds all right so far I can see you nodding.

[00:03:36] Ross: So I'm

[00:03:36] Mike: I'm nodding

[00:03:37] Ross: guessing we're on the right

[00:03:38] Mike: on a podcast, cuz obviously people can, can sense the nod

[00:03:43] Ross: they can feel the vibes. So let's unpack that a bit more so the, the vision at better happy is every employee happy, every business thriving, and you and better happy set out to solve a problem. You identified that modern businesses need teams of healthy, [00:04:00] happy, high performing employees to lead their industries.

[00:04:02] Ross: But due to the changes of modern life, more people than ever are struggling with poor health and burnout. That's a pretty big problem to solve, but let's look at how you've been approaching that. So if we've got this right in about 2018. You started to deliver health based 90 minute workshops to companies like Deloitte and Southampton football club.

[00:04:25] Ross: And. What I hear on the grapevine that is after each of those sessions, you've got some really positive feedback and also demand for more support and training in organizations. people desperately wanted to be healthier along side work and were struggling and they found your approach, highly insightful. So since then, it's evolved at better happy. You've worked with teams across hundreds of big and small businesses across a wide range of industries.

[00:04:51] Ross: And you've moved away from standalone workshops and developed the better happy methodology that truly transforms individuals, teams, and businesses.

[00:04:59] Mike: that's a good, a good summary.

[00:05:01] Ross: Excellent. Well, kudos to my research department. They seem to be doing all right. They've discovered a bit more. They really recognize your passion from your social media presence that you want to support businesses in driving optimal levels of employee health and engagement. And they also discovered a bit about your journey to this point, which included a career in the military, which involved two tours of Afghanistan. You were in military intelligence and a physical training instructor. And at some point you had a terrible relationship with a manager, which led you to become really disengaged there. then there was a chapter where you lived in monasteries, in Nepal and Thailand, volunteering and learning about what makes people healthy and happy.

[00:05:44] Ross: And then there was a chapter where you were, a fitness gym owner, and this was your first business and you suffered burnout during that episode. So it's quite rich. And we're gonna, unpick that a bit more in a moment, Mike, but how we met. Well, [00:06:00] you were designing an intervention for leaders at travel lodge, the big hotel chain, and you'd come across the book, the mindful and effective employee, which is by my pal, Paul Flaman, alongside Frank Bond and Frederick live Heim.

[00:06:14] Ross: And you were really interested in bringing act to the workplace into this work with travel lodge and we work together on the co-design of that. And we'll talk a bit more about that in part too. Just to say here, the outcomes were tremendous and there's a great video, which brings that to life beautifully, which I'll put in the show notes.

[00:06:33] Ross: But in short, you worked with Dan Curtis who's head of talent at travel lodge and Paula Wesley, the management development lead, and you designed and delivered a program that was structured over three full days. I have to say that's a top commitment from an organization to give their people three full days and recognizing the, the benefits of that and the signal that sends to them.

[00:06:55] Ross: I think, hats off to, to travel lodge for

[00:06:57] Mike: Yeah. They've got a really good attitude towards their people.

[00:07:00] Ross: And the stats you had 77 members enrolled on the program, less than five of them. Didn't complete all three sessions. Some people traveled four hours each way to attend each session and The feedback attendees gave the course an average of 9.2 out of 10, and that was a response rate of 61 out of 77. So that's pretty healthy response rate. So, but on top of the data, you had multiple attendees telling us it had helped them improve or changed their lives.

[00:07:27] Ross: Both professionally and personally. And managers also said they'd taken away what they'd learned and implemented it with their teams and had incredibly positive responses. So Chapo man, that's pretty amazing. Congratulations

[00:07:42] Mike: it's thanks to your help as well. And your guidance

[00:07:44] Ross: now. Mike there's one other thing that my research department picked up, and I don't know whether you yet permitted to comment on this yet, but they, they said that you've been approached by the BBC because the BBC are bringing back that amazing sports competition show called [00:08:00] superstars, which was a standard feature of my youth.

[00:08:03] Ross: I used to love watching it. And apparently you are in the frame to be the presenter. Now, I dunno if there's anything you can say about that or whether it's all under wraps at the moment.

[00:08:14] Mike: I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say about that. um, like I mentioned earlier, I feel like I have a face for podcasts, so I'm not sure how well I'll be received in that, in that new role. And my knowledge of sports is absolutely abysmal.

[00:08:31] Ross: but I think, I think it's more about the energy you bring and the skills you bring in, in communicating with people as

[00:08:37] Mike: yeah, that would be I'd enjoy that part for sure.

[00:08:40] Ross: Did, did you ever watch it as a, as a Nipper?

[00:08:43] Mike: I'm, uh, just outside of that, of that timeframe.

[00:08:46] Ross: Oh, dam it, man. I thought it would be something that, that, um, you may have heard of

[00:08:51] Mike: sorry, Ross. sorry to make, sorry to make you feel old.

[00:08:55] Ross: Yeah. I feel, I feel bloody old now,

[00:08:58] Ross: man.

[00:08:59] Ross: Peace Supers. I don't know about you, but I'm finding this happens more and more in life. You share an iconic cultural reference from your youth only to be met with Tumbleweed. consider this to be a people suit. Public service announcement for it will happen to you or it might have already started When I think back, I think it started for me at least a decade ago, I was in a major government department leading an HR for the minister's offices, and we had a new minister, Barness Wilcox.

[00:09:25] Ross: Nobody had met her before. And I said, expecting peels of laughter. It's a mystery. I wonder if it's Toyah?, Only to be met with blank faces. Ah, well it comes to us all. Mark my words. That is the end of this public service announcement, and we'll go back to the chat with Mike.

[00:09:42] Mike: I suppose like the, the old programs that I remember that were old to me when I was younger things like shooting stars and, the teenage.

[00:09:53] Ross: well, I guess I do have a story about them, because at that time, when you were sitting down watching teenage ninja [00:10:00] turtles, I was working in toys R us at the Metro center in the Northeast, and people were queuing from like five o'clock in the morning. these irate parents going, I've got Donatello, Rafa and Michaelangelo.

[00:10:14] Ross: I just need, which is the other

[00:10:15] Mike: Uh, Leon, did you say Leonardo?

[00:10:17] Ross: No, I don't think I's said that. So Leonardo and they'd be fighting over these models. Did you ever have any of the models

[00:10:24] Mike: Um, I feel like I did. I, like I said, it was kind of my, my early years. My mum always tells me that I was absolutely obsessed with them, but I guess as I came into, being just past that toddler phase, I moved on to action man, or, whatever else I liked mighty max as well.

[00:10:39] Ross: I'll have to send you a clip of superstars so you can catch up with the drama that it was, and it's such a good format, that's for another conversation or another podcast.

[00:10:49] INterlude

[00:10:49] Ross: But Mike, we we've had a, a little insight from my research department to you and your background.

[00:10:54] Ross: I wonder if you could help us unpick that a bit, talk a bit more about your career and what's got you to this stage, cuz there are some fascinating bits in there that I know our P supers will be really, really interested in.

[00:11:07] Mike: Well, first of all, you, your research, team's done a lot of, a lot of good work there. You've done some deep, you've done some dig deeping so well done. yeah, I,

[00:11:15] Mike: try to, even for my own say, try to break down my history into chapters, I guess, to, to kind of understand myself a bit more and my own journey.

[00:11:24] Lessons learned in military

[00:11:24] Mike: So I think that first major part of the chapter for me was, was obviously childhood, but really as that professional career in the military, that's when I started to be a responsible adult, I suppose we could say. And you know, I really enjoyed that career, the key thing that I learned in that career was that if you don't do work, that you are aligned to, or that ignites your passion long term, that's going to catch up with you. If you have a poor relationship with a manager and you aren't able to, or you don't do anything about it that can have a big impact on your mental health. So I suppose the key takeaway for me was the, the level of impact, the work that you [00:12:00] do has on your overall health and happiness. I think that's when I learned that lesson in the military.

[00:12:04] Mike: So I hadn't considered before, you know, I've probably seen a job as a way to pay the bills before that a way to get some life experience, but I'd never thought about the overall impact that a job has on how you feel as an individual, which I suppose is obvious. If we consider, we spend 50% of our waking hours, Monday to Friday at work

[00:12:20] Ross: so, so what was the impact of that, that sort of realization on you?

[00:12:24] Mike: well, I came to the realization after suffering depression.

[00:12:27] The impact of a bad relationship with a manager

[00:12:27] Mike: So I. BA basically back to back tours of Afghanistan. So I spent almost a year in Afghanistan with a, maybe a couple of months in between, and this was at the same time as having this poor relationship with this manager. And I made up a statistic on a post the other day said that, you know, 99.3% of people will have a bad relationship with a manager at some point in their career, which I then followed up with.

[00:12:46] Mike: I've completely made that up, but unless you're extremely lucky, you know, it's just human nature. We're gonna meet people that we don't go on with and don't, um, see eye to eye with. So it's just, it's, it's almost guaranteed. so that was all going on at the same time is working a, a very heavy workload with Afghanistan.

[00:13:01] Mike: And I just got to a point where I felt for the first time in my life, I felt hopeless. I think if you imagine the impact of having a poor relationship with a manager going into the military environment and times that By 10, at least, because, of obvious reasons, you know, it's a very, enclosed community.

[00:13:17] Mike: there's lots of powers that the management have in the military that they wouldn't have in civilian street as we used to call it city street. So, it's very difficult. It's very much, if you fall out with somebody and you're at a different rank, them, it's very much, very quickly you against that, rank structure, not just against that individual.

[00:13:32] Mike: So even people that might want to intervene and help you, they have this kind of ulterior motive of protecting the rank structure. And so you feel everyone's against you and it makes you feel very hopeless and it can quickly become very overwhelming. There's quite, there was quite high rates of suicide, in the military due to things like that.

[00:13:50] Mike: So

[00:13:51] Ross: I guess I hadn't thought about it like this, that the, the structures don't enable you to go to your management and go, Hey, could I give you some feedback?

[00:13:58] Mike: Of course not that that doesn't happen in the [00:14:00] military. You don't, it's an unwritten rule that you it's the rank, you know, you, a junior soldier does not question a senior soldier. You can get arrested for it in, in a theater of operations. So there's reasons for it. There's logical reasons for it, but obviously there's a lot of, negatives that come from it.

[00:14:15] Mike: You know, you, you still hear the stories of world war II, where somebody would refuse to shoot somebody and then they would be shot for refusing orders.

[00:14:21] Mike: it creates a very unique dynamic that can be very challenging.

[00:14:25] Ross: gosh. It makes, it makes me think about creating this environment of, safety and trust, which I would say that I haven't had great exposure to. military environments, but I remember one time at a, an event, a conference talking to someone in the military who was in bomb disposal. And he wanted to really foster this culture of psychological safety there, because if the junior person spotted something or said, maybe there's something that we should look at there, or maybe we should look at, for example, that wire, he wanted that person to be able to say that freely, because if he didn't, it could cost lives, but that, that is possibly quite a unique, set of contexts.

[00:15:07] Mike: you tend to see that in the military, that senior relationships between leaders and, and junior soldiers actually improved in theaters of operation because the bureaucracy is removed and the. The selfish desires of maybe wanting to, enhance one's career at the expense of others is removed and life and death is implemented.

[00:15:26] Mike: And when it's life and death, you'd be amazed at how well teams start to get on and how well leaders perform. You know, when a leader's life is literally when their life is in the hands of their team, they will be a good leader, nine times outta 10, because it's, it's now a life and death situation.

[00:15:38] Mike: Whereas when it's back in the UK and there's no life or death situation, it then starts to come down to, what's gonna get me recognized in the eyes of my seniors. What's gonna lead to me getting a promotion. What's gonna make my life easier. And that's when people's not so positive leadership qualities can emerge.

[00:15:53] Mike: I, I had a bad experience, you know, I'm not certainly don't wanna make out that all military leaders are bad. There's some of the best leaders in the world come from the military. And I had lots of very [00:16:00] positive experiences as well, but, it is this particularly negative one that was a very good learning curve for me, a good life experience.

[00:16:06] Ross: Hmm. And, and you talked about having a career that aligns with your, your passion. Can you tell me more about that? Do how it, how it did or didn't align with your passion when you were in the military.

[00:16:17] Mike: Yeah. I think I started to realize this when I started to go to Afghanistan. So when I joined the military, I joined the military at the age of 20. And my reasons for joining the military were, I didn't have to write a CV. it got me out of my hometown and it kind of sounded fun. that was my reasoning for joining the military.

[00:16:33] Mike: My friends mostly gone to university. I didn't wanna go to university. So that was my reasoning. And I think for the first two years, it was quite fun. It was training, learning, different experiences. But then once I got into the actual job, when we were in Afghanistan, I started to realize that, do I really agree with what we're doing over here?

[00:16:48] Mike: Is this really who I want to be? And the answer was no, you know, I can still do a good job. I didn't feel particularly good about it. And the longer it went on, the more apparent that became.

[00:16:58] I felt lost when I left the army

[00:16:58] Mike: so I kind of felt lost actually, when I left, cuz I, I'd never really had the confidence in myself or the, the levels of self-esteem to truly think about what I wanted with life. And maybe I thought that the career, the money, the respect that you get for being in the military, maybe I thought that was gonna tick the boxes as that's what society tells us, the girlfriends. But the truth is That's not what happened. You know, I found out actually those things don't make you feel particularly happy.

[00:17:21] Mike: In fact, you end up spending all of your money drinking or doing or, or buying yourself stuff or going traveling because you, you are unhappy and you're trying to mask it. So that's when I started to come to realization that perhaps you need to do something that actually aligns to what you wanna achieve with your life and who you wanna be.

[00:17:38] Ross: It's fascinating to hear about having the, the confidence to think about what you want to do and your purpose. Cause I think that's essential When we're training people or coaching people on working with their own values, it's the it's realizing that they have that

[00:17:51] Mike: Hmm. I think everything in the world comes down to to individual self-esteem. I think if you could increase the self esteem of everybody in the world by. 10% you'd make the [00:18:00] world UN exponentially better place. You know we we've all got friends and family that maybe even ourselves that have struggled with, addiction, even if it's not to the point of being classed as an addicts, but drinking too much, not looking after ourselves getting stuck into repetitive cycles of, unhelpful behavior.

[00:18:16] Mike: And we tend to feel annoyed with ourselves or with others. When that, when that happens, we just stop doing it. stop playing on computer games to 10 hours a day and go, go and find a better job, you know? And you like, okay. but when you look into it, you've gotta ask yourself, well, why, why is that person doing that?

[00:18:30] Mike: Why is that person not going out with all the opportunities that they have available to them today in the modern world and doing everything they can to. Live their best possible life to do the exact things they wanna do to travel. They wanna travel to make the money they could potentially make, why are they not doing that?

[00:18:45] Mike: And the only reason is cuz they don't believe in themselves. I can't see any other reason why we wouldn't, you know, and I know this cause I'm talking from personal experience and when you don't have the confidence to pursue what you want to pursue, you do what society tells you to do.

[00:18:57] Mike: And eventually, unless you're lucky that was gonna lead to you feeling quite unhappy. So you make up for it by drinking substance abuse, having lots of sexual partners, buying lots of stuff. Looking forward to two, three holidays a year. I think

[00:19:10] Mike: that's what happens. And it all comes down to confidence in my eyes.

[00:19:13] Ross: yeah. having all those in uncomfortable things inside of us and taking sort of avoidant action, like the, the drinking, the substance abuse, the playing video games for hours on

[00:19:23] Mike: It's be it's because you're unhappy with yourself and not doing what you know you should be doing. So well, it's my theory. So you mask that with short term pleasures and, and like you said, masks of actually how you truly feel.

[00:19:35] Ross: thank you. I love this dive into your, your history. Thank you for being so open. So you left the military and I think you had to give 12 months notice. Is that, is that right?

[00:19:46] Mike: I don't think it's the same now, but you, from the moment of signing off, as they call it, When you make yourself blacklisted in the military, in the, in the eyes of the people you've got 12 months till you leave, unless you've got a, a written job offer.

[00:19:59] Mike: And there, there [00:20:00] are ways to get out of it, but I didn't know what I wanted to do in my life. So I just watched the clock tick for 12 months.

[00:20:04] Ross: so what happened next? Tell, tell us the next chapter.

[00:20:08] Mike: When I came out, it felt very good. I went home for three days, and said, I think I'm gonna go traveling . So I went home for three days, kind of had like a welcome back slash leaving party and got, got on a one way ticket to Thailand, very cliche.

[00:20:25] Mike: And didn't come home for a. Two and a half years. Uh, well, I'll be honest. My first month I just got drunk in Thailand for a month, cuz I felt so relieved at being out the military. Uh, then I lived in Australia, worked on fishing, boats, worked in bars, worked in warehouses, went back to Thailand, lived on monastery, studied Buddhism, lived in Nepal, the mountains above the weather, teaching kids, English and studying Buddhism, uh, and the mind and spirituality and different cultures.

[00:20:52] Mike: You know, living with people that have got a lot less than us, which was a, a huge eyeopening experience than me. But the kind of turnaround moment was, I'm definitely a minimalist.

[00:21:02] Transformative moment

[00:21:02] Mike: I've always been a minimalist. I've been happy with having very little in my life and it makes me feel light. So I actually quite enjoyed backpacking because I had so few possessions and so few concerns.

[00:21:11] Mike: and I remember. Living in Perth, in Western Australia, which is one of the most isolated, yet most sunny cities in the world. And I had a very casual rooftop bar, job and I remember walking to work one day in my flip flops or thongs was as the, as Aussies, call them through Perth train station.

[00:21:30] Mike: And this is a transformative moment in my life. I'll probably never forget it. And I remember thinking to myself, I feel like I've got everything I could want now. You know, I had the career, it didn't make me happy. Now I've got some money in the bank home. I'm in a beautiful city. I've got friends and beautiful people around me, a job, and everything's pretty good.

[00:21:46] Mike: You know, I've got no, no stress whatsoever, but I still feel. Like I'm like I'm craving for something else. Like it's not quite right. And I remember thinking to myself, cause I wasn't unhappy. This is the key thing I wasn't moping. I was, I was happy, but I [00:22:00] felt like something was missing.

[00:22:00] Mike: And I remember thinking to myself, is there just something wrong with me? Am I just a little bit miserable? You know, am I just never really fulfilled? No matter how good life gets. Cause I know how good life is to me being born in the UK. having the options to travel, having the choice of careers, having the ability to be on the computer with you now, you know, I, I knew this at the time.

[00:22:17] Mike: I knew how lucky I was compared to so many. and at that moment when I was thinking, am I just miserable? I saw in a bookshop window, multiple copies of this guy's face, who I now understand to be the Dalai Lama with the title of the book, the art of happiness. Which I thought to myself that seems apt. considering how I'm failing right now. a book on the art of happiness from what looks like very wise spiritual guy who I now am a super fan of. So I went and bought the book. And at this point I hadn't read a book. You know, I'm embarrassed to say probably for three or four years, I'd been drinking, traveling, doing everything else.

[00:22:51] Mike: I've read a couple of books in the military, but nothing. That was my personal development. So I bought this book, went to work, came back, started reading it. everybody would've experienced this, but it, it felt like it was written for me. It's like the Dali Lama had sat there and written this book to me, not all the things he was talking about were, the things that I do, the mistakes I make, the issues I have in my life.

[00:23:09] Mike: And I've read this, I couldn't put it down. I read it over two days and that completely changed my philosophy on life, my approach to life and the. Actions I took from that moment forward, still, still to this day, because it taught me what happiness really is. And nobody had ever talked about that before.

[00:23:26] Mike: And I, and I remember reading it thinking as a 24 or five year old male at the time, why is this not taught in our schools? You know, we're taught maths are taught English, we're taught science, we're taught all of these things, but if I'd have learned this stuff earlier, I probably wouldn't have spent so much time drinking and wasting money and getting into trouble and feeling a bit lost and not pursuing the things that I want to pursue.

[00:23:47] Mike: not making a positive difference in the world, you know, just kind of living for my own selfish gain. if I'd read this earlier, I I'd have had 10 more years of being a better person cause that's what made you happy ultimately, so that, that was the ma major transformative moment for me in my life.

[00:23:59] Ross: [00:24:00] Wow. And going back to, when you arrived back home to see your mom, and then three days later you were off again, what was the motivation for that travel? Have you traveled before, or is this an adventuresome

[00:24:12] Ross: stab in the dark kind of thing.

[00:24:13] Mike: when I was in the military, I was quite unhappy for, for a period of time. and you get a lot of leave in the military, which was one of the benefits. So I took three weeks off and went to Thailand And the logic behind that was, perhaps this is what makes me believe a little bit in previous lives was in the military at the time.

[00:24:27] Mike: It was around the kind of, oh 8 0 9, 10 period, you know, post recession. So. The military has quite a high turnover of soldiers and it costs a lot of money to, to lose a soldier. It costs a lot of money to train a soldier. So the way that they were relying on trying to keep retention levels up was to constantly put the fear of God in you of leaving.

[00:24:45] Mike: If you leave, there's no jobs, you won't even get a job stacking shelves in Tescos. And when you're young and easily influenced you listen to these things. So even though I was unhappy, I always had that fear that. I've got to stay, I've got no other choice. There's nothing out there for me. You know, I'll be broken on the streets if I leave.

[00:25:01] Mike: And I remember as I was getting towards the point of being really low in the career, thinking to myself, even if things get really, really bad, I could leave and go and live on a monastery. And I knew nothing about Buddhism, nothing at all. I'd never read anything about it, but I always had this kind of feeling that there was this life I could go and live where I, nothing else mattered.

[00:25:21] Mike: so. I always had this strange allure to go to Thailand and learn about live this more peaceful stress, free life, where it's like, okay, even if you've got no money, it doesn't matter. Cuz you can go and learn that you don't need possessions to be happy. So that kind of always pulled me there.

[00:25:37] Mike: So I had three weeks there when I was in the military. And then when I left, I went more permanently as such, still not knowing what I was looking for.

[00:25:42] Ross: what was it like that monastery experience that day to day experience? Cause all I can think of is when I was little and again, I'm older than you. So here we go. Kung Fu there was a series called Kung Fu about a master and the, the apprentice

[00:25:58] Mike: Yeah.

[00:25:59] Ross: you've ever come [00:26:00] across that

[00:26:00] Mike: I don't know the series, but I know what you mean. It's what we all think. We think the shaolin in monks, up in temples with the

[00:26:05] Mike: running through the mist and walking across sand without leaving any impression on the sand

[00:26:10] Mike: It couldn't be any further from that really? Um, they have phones, some of them, it's not what we tend to imagine it to be. There's no levitating. There's no secret spouse. It is. the, monastery that I lived in, in, in Nepal was. A breathtaking setting. So certainly movie quality.

[00:26:27] Mike: It was up in a mountain. It was above the weather. So the clouds were always below you. It was so it was always blue skies. And certainly there was a giant golden buddha inside of the temple that definitely could have been fit for a movie. setting wise, yes. Like maybe like the movies, but what do you actually do?

[00:26:45] Mike: It's very straightforward. You learn about the mind. You do repetitive tasks to get mindful. You, you clean the monastery, you, you sweep, you don't get loads of in depth instruction. Like you might think you will, you essentially get taught to get to know your own mind more by removing distractions From the outer world, to focus on the breathing. It's you read a few books of meditation, you know, quite a lot about what's gonna get taught to you on a monastery. I think that the magic's more in the environmental removal of external distractions, because most of us have never done that. probably the biggest transformation for me was that I I didn't know how to be comfortable on my own. So I used to drink every Friday and Saturday because when, as soon as I had time to myself, I was like, well, I don't wanna sit here on my own with my own thoughts and try and be relaxed. So I'll go and drink myself into oblivion because I actually don't like being in clubs either. So the only way I'm gonna cope with being there is being really drunk. I think that's a lot of people in the UK, we're not happy being quiet and on our own. So we drink and we eat and we constantly find ways to. Try and keep ourselves preoccupied. Whereas actually, if we could just learn to be quiet and peaceful in our own presence, I think we probably put a lot of bars outta business

[00:27:50] Ross: I couldn't agree more. I think there's a general discomfort in acknowledging or recognizing emotions or realizing that life is up and down. It's not always[00:28:00] jazz hands and show tunes. It's sometimes it's bloody miserable and shit things happen in life, but we're kind of taught that chin up.

[00:28:08] Ross: turn that frown upside down and nonsense like

[00:28:12] Mike: Yeah. And, and, pleasure is good, but anything else is bad.

[00:28:15] Mike: it's not right. Is it? I think the school, you know, we can, you can get lost in this subject, but the schooling systems really founded on creating workers for the industrial revolution, which is people that can follow orders and, and get on with stuff for that. Ask too many questions.

[00:28:27] Mike: There's very little emphasis on, let's learn a little bit about the mind and about your emotions and how it's completely normal to not feel good all the time. Whereas you go to Nepal where they live in poverty, really in comparison to us and the kids are learning how to monitor their own minds.

[00:28:42] Mike: How to recognize that thoughts come and go. How to recognize that you are not your thoughts. They pass like clouds over the sun. You know, these kids are learning this stuff at six years old.

[00:28:51] Ross: Oh mine, If I'd learned stuff like that at Schoolly me.

[00:28:56] Mike: How many problems would be solved?

[00:28:58] Ross: Yeah, absolutely. so then what happened next? This, this feels like a, kind of a pitch for a film. I like

[00:29:05] Mike: I dunno how excited the film would be.

[00:29:07] Silent Retreat

[00:29:07] Mike: what happened was I was living on a monastery in Thailand and I was on a silent retreat, which is a week of being silent, but it's, it's hardcore. There's not only are you silent, you have no books. So try and sit for an hour without looking at a book or your phone or having a conversation.

[00:29:24] Mike: And that's, unless you're falling asleep, that's very difficult. And what it forces you to do is get really deep with what goes on in your own mind. Then I found a lot of something I'd never found before, but a lot of kind of anxiety, worry, uh, discomfort. That was a really difficult experience for me, actually the silent retreat, because I can go without a phone or a computer for, for a year.

[00:29:43] Mike: Doesn't bother me whatsoever, but I like my books. I like to be learning, but that's an addiction in itself as well. So just being truly quiet on your own for a week is, is hard. really hard. So it was a good experience for me, but it also kind of led to me having a bit of a kneejerk reaction and convincing [00:30:00] myself that, being on a silent retreat, wasn't the thing I should be doing with my life.

[00:30:03] Mike: I've been born into privilege compared to most people in the world. I'm not certainly not from a wealthy family, but you know, I'm born into the UK into a modern westernized developed nation where you are relatively safe from the fear of death on a daily basis. So I felt that with these. privileges that I have to me, my job isn't to be sat here, it's to be in the UK, making a difference to people. So I think it was a combination of my purpose, but also running away from spending too much time on my own that led, led to me to come back to the UK and, and jump head first into opening my, first business, which was called Metta Box. But the meta not meta as, as in metaverse, but it's a double T, which is actually a Buddhist term for loving kindness.

[00:30:43] Mike: so that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to come back and help people be healthier and happier.

[00:30:48] Ross: So, so tell us about met box.

[00:30:50] Mike: So I knew I wanted to open a business, but I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. I wasn't sure what it was going to be. And about six months after being back, I had the opportunity to, lease a unit at a very low cost, on the side of an existing gym. if I cleaned it out and tidied it up.

[00:31:04] Mike: So I was a, I was a free spirit at the time. So that's what I did. So I started what, people would know as a CrossFit gym for a lot of people that sounds intimidating and they think of big buff guys are their tops off, but really it it's about community fitness and functional training. So bringing people together to train together, teaching people how to move, to avoid postural issues and, help 'em get into good shape essentially.

[00:31:24] Mike: And that just took off. It did really well. So it went from startup to us, having our own unit with our own lease in two years, to us turning over six figures, having a team of four within five years. So. It was a really good startup business. And from the outside, looking in, people were probably envious of how successful I was in starting my first business.

[00:31:44] Mike: But at the same time, I was working myself into the ground, paying myself next to nothing, to constantly pump the money back into the gym and, and build a team. I took two weeks off in five years. So, I had no time with my, partner. I kind of cut myself off from my family, not [00:32:00] intentionally, but just cuz I was always doing work. So obviously that led to me just being completely and emotionally exhausted at the kind of five year point, which is when COVID came along. So, that taught me another lesson, you know, it taught me again, your work has a major influence on your overall health and happiness. And we tend to think that's because we haven't found the thing that we're passionate about.

[00:32:20] Mike: Cause we've got the bad relationship with a manager. Well, it might, it might be those things, but. You find the thing that you might be passionate about. And then you're at just as a higher risk of suffering because you're gonna burn yourself out. And it's almost like a, continuum and you have to be in the middle.

[00:32:34] Mike: You know, if you're disengaged, if you don't like your work, that's gonna lead to you feeling unhappy and unfilled. Whereas if you love your work so much that you, you are willing to sacrifice your, your health, then you're gonna burn out and resent your work and become disengaged. So, and unhappy. So it's kind of like finding this middle ground, I think.

[00:32:51] Ross: Yeah. It's such, such an important point that it it's getting, it's getting that balance.

[00:32:56] Humans aren't good multitaskers

[00:32:56] Mike: I don't think humans are naturally good multitaskers. I don't think we're naturally good at balancing our lives because we've never had to, you know, I always think back to hunter gatherers. And if you think about how the hunter gatherer went about their work, they worked together physically active in their community to work towards the same goal, which was survival of the tribe. But then they had time with their families. So their social life was there because they were working with them and then finishing the day with them. They switched off at night because it was dark. So they couldn't work anymore. they slept naturally. They, they had to talk to each other. They had, you know, talking's one of the best, forms of therapy, whether it was grunting back then or talking, we don't know, but

[00:33:32] Ross: Yeah.

[00:33:33] Mike: you know, so, so all of the things that we know contribute to good health happen naturally.

[00:33:37] Mike: So we didn't have to think about it for 95% of our existence. Whereas now it's like, find a job that you are passionate about. Okay. That's difficult. But once you do that or even work, you're passionate about, you know, and then it's okay. And now I've gotta make sure I'm still spending time with my family, but actually my brain has evolved to make me wanna do a really good job.

[00:33:56] Mike: So I'm definitely gonna start putting that ahead of everything else. And then it's like, oh, [00:34:00] okay. And fit in some health stuff as well. Because if you don't look after your health you're gonna struggle because the work is sedentary and we sit down a lot. you've got this new challenge really where you, you think you're gonna solve it if you're just passionate about your work, but that's, that's just gonna create more issues as well.

[00:34:13] Mike: That you've got to be aware of

[00:34:14] Mike: you. And I will know about this because we've both got businesses and well, why do we have these businesses? Cuz we're passionate about what we're doing. You know, that's the reason we have a business and not, and not just a job, not that you can't have a job and be very passionate, uh, that you can have a job and not be passionate, but You are always at risk of burning out because, or working too hard or letting yourself slip because it's not naturally built in anymore. And we've never had to try and balance it all.

[00:34:36] Ross: at P supers. This is why I love talking to Mike, me and Mike talk quite regularly. we sometimes ramble go off point and it's particularly me. But when I hear Mike talking there, I'm thinking about compassion focused therapy and that's sort of soothing affiliative, emotional regulation system, which we got when we were hung together was cuz we came back to the cave and we connected with other

[00:34:57] Mike: mm.

[00:34:58] Ross: And now. we, we don't necessarily do that. Or we just keep that drive going, particularly in things like global businesses or, or your own business where you think I'm the only one responsible here. I've gotta keep going. So the context of the working life has changed so dramatically

[00:35:14] Mike: Mm. I do think that it's two extremes. I think we've got life can be so much better now. We've got so much more opportunity than we've ever had and most of us, if we're honest, would not go back to being hunter gatherers. if it was offered to us now, you know, get rid of all your stresses that you have in modern life.

[00:35:28] Mike: This is what you're gonna go back to. By the way, if you, if you fall and break your leg, then you're just probably gonna die. And if you get a disease you're gonna die and there's no houses, you know, we probably wouldn't choose that so we can paint it in rose, tinted glasses, but. We have more opportunity now and more freedom to live our best lives, but we also have a hundred times as many things to worry and stress about and balance.

[00:35:48] Mike: So it's, it's extremes, you know, it's extremes like yes, you can be more happy. Yes. You can create more freedom. Yes. You can live the exact life you wanna live, but also you've got lots of decisions to make. You've gotta avoid process food. You've gotta avoid [00:36:00] socially isolating yourself because you're pursuing the thing you're passionate about.

[00:36:03] Mike: So there's, chicken and egg almost. There's there's, there's two things to kind of balance

[00:36:07] Ross: so this almost brings us back to, to more recent events where you established better happy, where you started doing those, one off workshops in 2018. But for the moment, I just wanna ask you a question that I ask all my guests and it's for a song choice. this song isn't forever, but it would announce your arrival in a virtual.

[00:36:26] Ross: Uh, meeting room when you enter your house, it would just be a song that automatically plays when you enter a new venue, whether you go to the supermarket, they'd play it over there to tan. I, and just wonder if you have a song choice that would you'd choose for that.

[00:36:39] Mike: I think I would choose a song which is called generator. I dunno if you've, if it rings about to you, but it goes, I could get a record player and a generator generat, the music that makes you feel better. I am I your first podcast go guess that's sung.

[00:36:51] Ross: Um, the they're normally quite a reluctance, so hat self to your man for, for

[00:36:56] Mike: what, it's very, it's very upbeat. It's very fun. And. It's basically reminding you throughout the whole song. That your life's pretty good. So be happy. And obviously a lot of what we'll talking about today is that it's perfectly normal to not feel happy all the time. But I also think that our minds are inheritantly negative.

[00:37:12] Mike: So having as many reminders as possible to, to get back into that positive frame of mind, I think is a good thing. As long as it's not the message, it's bad to feel bad.

[00:37:21] Ross: so the song's called generator, is that right? And it's by a group, is it,

[00:37:26] Mike: Called the Holloways. Yep.

[00:37:27] Mike: What's one of the lyrics. I don't live in poverty, but I've got a little bit of money in a healthy body there's lyrics like that. They're really, and they're really positive and fun. So it makes you want to dance a bit and the lyrics are just great.

[00:37:37] Ross: That's it, part one in the bag. Thanks so much to Mike for being so open and reflecting on his experience over his career. So, next time.

[00:37:50] Ross: You'll hear a whole lot more about Mike's approach and philosophy at Better Happy. If you like this episode of the podcast, please, could you do three things? Number one, share it with one other person.[00:38:00] Number two, subscribe to the podcast and give us a five star review. Whatever platform you're on, and particularly if you're on Apple Podcasts, the Apple charts are really important in the podcast industry.

[00:38:13] Ross: And number three, share the heck out of it on the socials. This will all help us reach more people with stuff that could be. I'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch at people soup dot pod gmail.com. On Twitter, we are at People Soup Pod on Instagram at People dot Soup.

[00:38:30] Ross: And on Facebook we are at People Soup Pod. thanks to Andy Klan for his Spoon Magic. And Alex Engelberg for his vocal. Most of all, dear listener, thanks to you. Look after yourselves. Peace supers and bye for now.

[00:38:45] Ross: Yeah.

[00:38:46] Mike: the only negative Ross so I'm gonna wet myself. I'm just.

[00:38:49] Ross: Please do. I'd rather, you didn't do that on the podcast.