 Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. So we're doing a special series of podcasts which I'm recording over Google Hangouts. So we're doing audio and video because for some unknown reason people don't want to come see me face to face right now. But there's always opportunity and the cool thing is I'm able to now podcast with people from all over the world. So we're going to get an amazing eclectic mix of people from different industries, different perspectives to share their story and tell us their thoughts and feelings on what's going on right now. And all of that cool stuff. Hope you enjoy it. Please subscribe in all the usual places and enjoy. Cool, we are live. Welcome to the podcast everyone and the video cast and welcome Spuds for the third time after popular demand and great feedback. We are going to have to endure another Frank and Ernest chat with Spud. What can I say? Am I the most frequent member now then? You currently have, you are. You are. You're the most. Maybe some of your friends I think, I think that's the main issue. You need to branch out a little bit. I mean it's a bad time to branch out now but when this blows over me, go and interact with some more humans. You can't keep coming back to me. Well, you know the great thing now actually is now I used to be like you have to come in and see me face to face for a podcast, right? But now my world is my oyster with like this technology. It's great. Okay, you can definitely do that but I enjoy the coffee at your place so I will miss coming in and actually drinking your coffee with you. Thank you. Not wanting to make you jealous but I'm just almost finishing one right now. This one's straight from Columbia. No need. To be fair, I've got some good coffee in the house so I'm not jealous. I'm okay. You're fine. But when that runs out it's not going to be a conversation about jealousy. No, once this is all over we'll do a proper face-to-face coffee again. Yeah please. How are you finding all of this stuff? It's, I think it's a little bit strange for everybody. I think from my personal perspective as long as you can understand that everybody's world is currently upside down, you'll be okay. Like this isn't about you. It's not about the individual like the globe is on, is on a bit of a flip over at the minute. So if that gives you some solace that, yes, we're all sort of upside down and everything's changed and it's all a bit strange. As long as you bear in mind that this is for everybody then you can sort of try and continue to be as normal or as close to normal as you possibly can. Yeah, true. And I think as far as I'm concerned it's about headspace. Again it's the right headspace and that's the first thing. This is everybody and not just you. So get yourself in that headspace and everything else will just feel a little bit nicer. Yeah. A lot of people are quite, they've let it affect them. I mean just yeah. I mean trying to let, you know, my motto has been like not to let things, not to let things I can't affect, affect me. Yeah, bingo. And I know, I mean it's still a very harsh reality for a lot of people and it will be different for, you know, varying whoever you are, you're going to be affected by this differently. Some people are affected a lot more greater than others. Some people are almost unaffected. Some people can just carry on working from home or be isolated home for a little bit. But that to some people might be a really big wave to ride. Just having to stay in your own home all the time is a big deal. You know, and it goes all the way to the NHS workers currently. Those guys are absolutely within it. They arrive in a massive wave. But if that's their comfort zone and they like being busy, then you just have to bear in mind that everybody's going through some weirds now. And it's still fresh as well. Yeah. Any sort of hard to deal with once we've, once we've settled a little and we know that this is normal, then I think we can sort of push forward and start behaving us a little bit. That's true. It's actually made me, I've said this before, but it's made me actually be grateful for what we have. I mean, like, we've got like delivery on tap. We've got the entertainment you can pick between like a million different providers. The shelves are stocked. Like, can you imagine if we're in like, you know, World War II now, or how Anne McFelt, she was hiding in like one bedroom with seven members of her family for two years with just a pen and paper and a book. So, you know, it's actually not that bad, you know, if you get the perspective on it, you know, and then, you know, with online stuff like this, I mean, with you guys are still doing like the workouts online and, you know, perspective is everything. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And it's, and this really goes back to when like, think back six months ago, when we could still go out in parks with each other and we could go out into each other's houses with the Christmas party in December, where everybody got together and that will be happening now. But really easy to see what's happening. And I think you've hit them on the head there when you look at what you've got and what could have been if this was happening 50 years ago, or, you know, even 20 years ago, it would have been just a lot, a lot different than it is now. So, that is the way to approach this. Hugely. I mean, like, even like to Disney have just released Disney Plus, right, which is their Netflix thing, right? It's £45 for the whole year, right? £45 for the whole year, which is like a third or whatever of a CrossFit membership for a month or whatever, right? No, it's nothing, but I mean, but what entertainment? You can entertain yourself for like a million years on Disney stuff, or you could go on Netflix for like £5.99 a month for, I mean, you know, on YouTube for free. Yeah, there is, I mean, there is ways to entertain yourselves digitally, virtually, however you want to see that. But there's also a really long list of other things you can do that are going to stimulate your brain. And this is really the most important part of being on a lockdown, whatever that means, stimulation. And it doesn't always necessarily mean following a YouTube video of somebody doing 100 push-ups in the living room. And I know that obviously, as the gym, we are pushing out these videos for the people that want to do that, but that at the same time can have a detrimental effect on people. If their social media streams are of like gym enthusiasts doing gym stuff at home, that might not necessarily help somebody who's struggling with motivation to get up and cook a meal. So there's other things that you can do that can help you motivate you to find a bit of normality. And then that might turn into doing workouts in the home. But for now, having some sort of routine, getting out of bed in the morning, making breakfast, having a cup of coffee, and sitting down and focusing on something is really the most important part of what you need to do. And that's just mental health. Deal with the basic stuff and the complicated things like doing backflips in your garden will happen. You'll get there. But for now, you're out of the way of just being able to focus on something, because that will really help you or your mental capacity through these really dark times. Yeah. No, for me, the hardest thing's been because I like routine. I really like going into my office. I like getting up. I like walking to the grass or the tube or cycling in. And, you know, like I get into I really like going in and working. And then suddenly, I've got to be at home. And I'm trying to recreate and make some of the same like routines. So I'm trying to have a little walk in the morning, drink my coffee. And my wife works in the hospital. So I've been I've been dropping her off and then coming back and then make coffee and, you know, like getting into my into my routine. It's quite it's quite hard. Like, you know, it's hard to get into routine that bloody fridge keeps distracting me all the time. My name is like, get out of my head. Like just looking at what's going on. Yeah. And these are really the most difficult days. So I had a conversation with a pal who was ex-military as well. And we are kind of approaching this whole thing like we're on a deployment. Yeah. You've kind of been to this already. Your world is now not what it was. Delete that. That will you'll be able to go home to that at some point. For now, you're locked into the same place. There's something that's trying to kill you every day. The food isn't the best options. You're not getting steak and lobster every day. You've got to make these traces. The fitness stuff that you would normally do isn't the same because you don't have the same equipment. It's essentially like you've been stuck in a forward operating base in the middle of the desert and you've just got to kind of do with the best of what you've got. Yeah. Treat it like you're on some sort of deployment and you have no other choice but to do the job that you are required to do for now. Because at some point you'll fly home and everything will be normal and you can walk through a leafy green park and drink a cider in the pub in the summer. Definitely. What a great way to think about it. It's true. I was listening to some of my next military guy talking about it and they were like, most important thing in war and I've not been in war and you have but it's like staying calm under pressure. If people are shooting at you and stuff, you want to be able to think clearly about how you can plan to get out and stuff. This is no different. You choose how you think about the situation. Treat it like a hostile environment to a point because if you treat like, if you kind of think, oh, well, it's all right, we're at home and it's, you know, my local environment is all still the same. It's really not. It's really not the same. It's not. You're not spending a very small like an hour in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening before you go to bed. Your entire day is spent in this space. You have to treat like a space that you will eventually get out of by going to the pub and doing activities and taking the kids out to the theme park or whatever it is going to be. That will happen again at some point. We're not going to be here forever. If that's three months, if it's six months, if it's nine months, whatever, treat it like you don't know what the end date is yet, but it's still a hostile environment and you have to change and everybody can do it. You can change your mentality to survive in a hostile environment but you just have to do that. Don't treat it like you're just at home and everything's okay because that's when it really starts to crush you down. For people that like have never had to do that and they're currently like in that dark cave of like they're scared, they don't want to catch it. Is there any like kind of easy things that they can just do? Yeah, like obviously I'm saying that but I had like extensive training. You don't just like then you just off to Afghanistan. I've been in the military for 12 months through like extensive training before I'd even gone. Even when I got to Afghanistan, I was like, whoa, this is so yeah, I understand that me saying that might be a bit like that doesn't carry across to human life. I think just understanding that it's not your normal comfort zone is very important. Currently what you think is your comfort zone isn't your comfort zone and it might feel like it is for now but it might get to the point where you just resent your own living room because you're in it so much and that's really detrimental and the people that you're having to spend time with, you've got to figure out a way of being with these people and it's almost like forget the relationship that you're in with them to a point. Obviously it's still like wife and kids or girlfriend, boyfriend, mother, father, whoever you're isolating with are still that person to you but there's still got to be some sort of separation at some point. For instance like me and Jasmine just spend some time with my mum and this is where we're isolating. We're lucky enough to have the camper van so we can just disappear off into the wilderness if we need to but I'm still doing my work through the day and then we'll come together, we'll eat lunch and then we'll go and do our own things again and I think that's really important to do that. Spend some time away from the people that you're stuck in the building with and just think about the stuff that you're going to be able to do at some point. You can't do it now and don't be like oh I wish I could do this, this and this. That is the worst thing you can do. I wish we could just go and have an ice cream or I wish we could just you know see all of friends and have a big party. Stop thinking about that now because for me if I was on operational deployments and I was thinking that way that is going to drag out so much. If I'm thinking I need to get up in the morning I need to make sure that my kit and equipment is clean and serviceable. I need to make my brew, feed myself, clean myself and then I can get on with whichever job in hand needs to be done. Yeah and that's really what you need to do and if you need to write that down I'm going to get up at this time, I'm going to make my coffee at this time, I'm going to blah blah blah blah blah, at least you've got something to follow, write it down, see it and then when you don't do it you're like I didn't follow that list. You're keeping like, you're keeping like a well structured kind of daily plan of what you're going to do. Even if it's for the first two hours, even after like after 10 o'clock it's just free for all you do whatever work you get you know distracted by YouTube whatever you need that's fine you do it but if those first two hours of your day wake up at this time, go for a jog, do whatever homework out you need to do, clean yourself, feed yourself, caffeinate yourself and then just get on with your daily business. If you can hit those first two hours of your day mentally you're going to be like what can do anything now I've nailed that first two hours, I'm ready. You've won, yeah. What are you doing right now? Say again sorry. What are you doing like kind of fitness wise now? A lot of running. Running, just running outside. Running yeah I mean I was, I kind of need to get my runtimes back down again anyway I haven't since I went deep into CrossFit and ran my own gym so I've not I've not done like a best effort mile and a half run for almost a decade. Wow, wow. Because I got out of the military in 2011. Okay so there was a lot of running in the military and then you just like sod all this running and well when I was in there it was like heavy carries a lot of running in distance and I know that it's changed drastically now. They're using a lot more functional things with the testing capacities for soldiers. Right. So it's almost like you fit in less than an hour almost like CrossFit workouts just to see how varied you are across the board. Like when I was in the army I never did a deadlift. Never, never did a deadlift. Never, never learned how to squat properly. It was just like how fast can you run and how much weight can you carry while you run fast. Which is good. My job you know my move quickly with heavy weight and you know there's no point in doing other things or so it seemed at the time but you know since since this and seeing the the potent effects of functional training it doesn't matter what your job is I know that we're using functional fitness even for soldiers makes complete sense. So now there's like inter regimen from CrossFit competitions. Amazing. Different regimen. We and them and they come together and they have like big throw downs like boxes working out against each other just different regiments and it's awesome. It's really easy. So yeah for me I'm kind of running because I don't have a home gym I don't have kit and equipment. You know I've got I've got bits and pieces I I could quite easily drive to the southwest and surf but I think that's selfish. I don't you know you don't want to be taking yourself into these really beautiful environments where the local people can't go anywhere and do anything. You know I think it's quite selfish and floods the beauty spots especially when they have the resources to deal with. Yeah. The virus as well. Maybe you have it. If you're asymptomatic and you then surf and there's 20 people in the lineup the amount of people those 20 people can affect is drastic. It's massive. So for me when they say self-isolate I'm just going to isolate. Yeah under me with jazz or on my own we're just going to run and run and run and run and see and see how good run time can be when all this blows over. We can't go wrong running. I mean running's the best. You need no you need no equipment you just need to get out. You can even run better. I mean yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of I mean we should really be taught how to run properly. You should be taught to strike more efficiently how to how your biomechanics work when you run if you've got any existing issues how that's going to affect your run which can you know there's many different things but down to its bare bones go for a run. If that's a run that's a walk if you want to find a big hill and walk up and down at 20 times do that you know as long as your heart and lungs are working you're doing something good. So for me the weather's good. I rode the motorbike up from London to Stoke yesterday like 200 miles journey which was awesome in the sun. Right now I'm just in a really good place mentally to just go outside and just get running if the sun's out go outside do something. Yeah it's amazing. What do you think of these online coaches? It seems to be like a million that has sprung up all of a sudden. Overnight everybody's become a fitness professional. Yeah. Do you think they're overall? Everybody's Instagram feeds are just buff people doing stuff in the living rooms which you know on one side cool. Yeah. People are a lot of options but on the other side if I'm not that driven to kind of work out in my living room and I'm just seeing loads of ripped fit beautiful athletes doing stuff in the living room I'm going to be more tempted to just like swipe it away close the whole thing down and be like I'm not doing that because I'm not going to look like them. Yeah. Like I love CrossFit because you're going to go and have an interaction with a coach who can offer you something. Yeah. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally like if your dogs died go to CrossFit because your coach will give you something that's going to help you deal with that. Yeah. You're looking at someone who is awesome at push-ups do a thousand push-ups. I don't know. Yeah it's got to be a little bit more guided than just follow me do what I'm doing. Yeah. For me fitness is about empathy you've got to have an empathetic approach as a coach so if you are coaching and you're saying this is this, this is this then I'm not sure how that transfers. So we are running Zoom classes out of the gym so at least the members can interact with us as coaches and I can have a little bit of say on how they're moving offer them variants of the movement standards that we're doing just like we would do in a regular CrossFit class and this goes back to trying to make your environments as close to regular as possible. Yeah. Yeah. It's not an ideal environment but if you've got somebody guiding you and giving you some fitness advice take it. They definitely have. Like the first session was a yoga on Sunday and I did it and they were like I think 25 people or something that they dialed in and you recognise everyone because you've trained with everyone at some point and it was just hilarious and now you guys have started the CrossFit sessions which are called the dial-in today. It's also familiar and also you know when you know people and you've trained with them already it's just a sense of like we're all in this together and you feel like quite like yeah you know shared experience thing and once all this is over and we're back in the gym I think the community is going to be even stronger. Yeah well I think that's the main point right trying to keep the community together and trying to give them some sort of bonding agent to keep them together for now and I don't think this I don't think it will last forever if we are locked down for three years I'm not sure that we'd be doing the same thing but I think for now while spirits are still relatively good and there's still an opportunity for us to build those spirits and make sure people are feeling good and we can keep doing it. But also back to your army stuff I mean that the friends and camaraderie you must have built with people that you were at war with must be lifelong friends that will call me just to just to talk just to chat and just you know to mick out of each other for an hour because I think that the friendships that are built in dark times tend to be the stronger friendships you know and you can really kind of see who your friends are in dark times if it's always like nice and sunny and you don't really have any challenges you've not really been tested as a friend I think it's a good chance now to show who you are as a person and it really shows that when you see the people going down and pushing old ladies out of the way to get the last toilet roll we're seeing who we are as people now. We're getting a good opportunity to see that divide and they'll know that they're bad people. It's like what do you do when no one's licking? Well yeah exactly yeah and now the world watching just you know behave yourself if you are if you are a bad person just try and be a bit less bad if you know that you're the one who's just bought all of the meat out in the store in the morning just you know behave yourself a little bit but on the flip side of that you've got the the good people who are doing good stuff don't require recognition for it and you know the volunteer volunteering in their local communities through various forms um you know obviously you've got the NHS volunteers thing that's just opened up um there's many different ways that you can help your community and usually when you do something good you won't get recognition for it and you'll kind of do it behind the scenes but you shouldn't need recognition for it you shouldn't be doing things so that people can see you doing them. No definitely but you get something out of it I mean like you get you know you feel good about yourself you know it's not that will definitely help and it goes it always goes back to how what's your mental capacity like in dark times how are you how are you dealing with what's going on around you and helping the people who need them in a safe way obviously don't be going out and like giving out free hugs in a coronavirus but if you can you can go and pick up yeah if you can go and pick up you know groceries for a local elderly lady and drop them off at a door and give her like kind of knock and run then do you know if you can if you can volunteer to be like a blood delivery biker for the NHS do that you know there's loads of different ways across varying platforms that you can offer some help to somebody and I'm saying that if you're not volunteering you're a bad person don't get me wrong if you've got stuff to do and you're getting on with it cool just don't be a bad guy don't don't go and scoop up resources don't risk yourself don't go and take up all the stuff that needs to be spread thinly you know there's plenty of supplies in the supply chain just follow the rules for a little bit follow the advice loads of stuff I mean I popped into the there's a great little I think they're Turkish but a great little shop next to it next to CrossFit Toughenham Park yeah I love that place do you know what we've talked about this place before on the podcast yeah yeah it's morning I mean those potatoes still have mud on them I mean they're like you know so they're all they're fully stocked you know they're letting people in like two at a time or something yeah and that's across across the country you know all of these places are stocked with stuff and you don't need to bulk buy you can just yeah you really don't you really don't I think we're starting to realize that now people people panicked yeah you know it's like oh look everything's restocked again I don't know why you would think that they wouldn't be restocked all you've done is just probably wasted a load of fresh food you know there's a lot of this they're saying now like the waste collection companies are saying that the fresh food that's being wasted is close to what it would be around Christmas because people buy so much food and throw it away they're not eating it so just stop panic buying like buy the things you need do a weekly shop go out once a week and buy the food and you'll be okay yeah and you can still eat well as well you really can and if you if you're living on basics there's ways that you can you know put those together and make still make good food if the local places run out of meat or fish or whatever you would normally go to fine like make something else yeah you'll be okay you'll be all right the really cool thing I found um oh it's two things actually I mean I'm trying to drown out all the negative social media rubbish and I'm muted most of my whatsapp groups now um but I feel so much more sociable now like I'm I'm speaking to my mates like good friends that I used to speak to all the time but just life gets in the way and you know like if you speak to them once a month you feel like you're doing well now I'm like I'm not speaking to my mates at 8 30 in the morning with a coffee I'm like well I've been speaking to you at this time forever I've like I've like I've like got much closer and I've spoken to my mates a lot more and it's interesting that it's taken like something like this to do that yeah yeah you're right um and I like again it can go it can go both ways if you're feeling more much more sociable and interactive great wonderful but bear in mind there's probably someone in your friends group that's maybe feeling a little bit like they're in the hole yeah yeah so I'm having a conversation about somebody with somebody about this the other day like reach out yeah just just ping them like we are we are sociable people me and you as individuals are yeah our jobs involve talking to a lot of people on a daily basis having conversations so we're kind of good at it we've probably got probably a personal trait we've always been good at it and we found something that we can do that utilizes that a lot of people don't have that and we take that granted so if you're one of the social ones and this goes to everybody who's listening to the podcast now if you're one of the social ones reach out to the people that you speak to normally and you've maybe not spoken to in a couple of weeks because they might not have spoken to anybody in a couple of weeks that's so true it's so true I mean you can even just even on your whatsapp you can broadcast all of your contacts and be like hey I just want to check in and find out how you are are you all good yeah and don't even make out like it's a broadcast just send an individual message or up to everybody are you okay yeah everything alright yeah do you need anything you know just something like send them a joke a meme or something that you found on the internet like they'll appreciate it yeah send them a picture of yourself before and then we can send one off to the lockdown and just yeah yeah and if Instagram it will all be like Hulk Hogan by the time the coronavirus is blown that'll be interesting hopefully we'll be yeah I mean if the Instagram we're going to be like so ready for the summer I mean or Fit Nation ready oiled shaven just in like Bronx right now man and we'll just go straight for holiday we're definitely going to see what people's real real hair color is because he's going to be able to get down to the head yeah yeah fortunately mine's just like continuously getting grayer and grayer and I'm not making any effort to like dye it out well I'm getting bigger mine just keeps growing it's so thick I go to the hairdressers now and just have it thinned out so it really needs like I'm just going to grow it happens and then I'm going to look like the beauty of the big Lebowski that's how I mean I shaved it actually but I might try and grow like an aggressive hips to beard just capacity just give it a go just you know I really want to see that I'd love to do that I might do that I'm going to do that I had a like a weird thought last night I've said this said this yesterday but you know like everyone's everything's all about sustainability climate change there've been conferences with governments and everything it feels like the planet has just said you humans are not doing a good job but go stay in your room for a few months yeah whack this virus out it's stuck to everyone and made the sunshine and it's just giving the planet a break which is really interesting yeah the planet is getting a breather and I just I think like it's unfortunate that he has to come to this but I've always said that the human race is the problem we're all the way like just get it get it done get us all off give it back to the animals let the dogs just kind of run free for a bit it'll be interesting to see just let it just let it recover but if people's habits change once this is over or we just revert back to I wish I had an injury with my family the revert back could be like twice as bad because they've not had it for a long time and they'll just kind of go absolutely mental yeah it would be interesting to see how we continue this but I think there's a there's a lot of people who are having the same thought process as what you've just said it's letting the planet reset we're having a bit of a breather the sun's come out the rivers are running a little bit cleaner you know there's the air quality in China is improved because no one's driving around yeah massive yeah everything's just closed down yeah factories have shut down and yes we're all losing a job but you know the the main point is the the place that we live now is just a bit happier for us to be inside let's just do like two or three months of being inside and see what happens yeah but you're touching it I think like you know the virus fine I mean I'm not that concerned about getting it and stuff and I'm sure I will if I haven't had it already but the jobs thing you know like people losing their jobs and that that economic thing that's tough yeah massively massively tough and it it's and it goes right back to the first conversation that we had today is everybody's getting affected by this yeah everybody big guys the little guys everybody in between everybody will be hit by this in some way or form so we can discuss you know the economy we can discuss the stock markets if you want to but we don't need to do that I think as long as you just bear in mind that this is something that we're all going through reach out to your friends if you've not spoken to them for a little while reconnect with people that you maybe should reconnect with because you've got the opportunity to and just you know at some point we'll all be in the pub drinking a pint again 100% what you realize is whether you you know whether you've got a big mortgage big rent small rent whatever like no one's no one's very far away from having nothing yeah yeah yeah like really you lose your job and you might have like a massive house or a small one bedroom whatever it doesn't matter like everyone ultimately is in the same spot yeah you know yeah so never really that goes to never just rest on what you've got always just not necessarily have a a contingency plan or a get out plan but just be sort of grateful for what you have and if you do have you know big mortgage kind of means you've got a big house and you're doing okay but just bear in mind that something at some point might just sort of knock it all off a little bit and it's just going to be turbulent yeah yeah yeah it's driving I've started a gratitude diary oh nice yeah it's great I mean I've got this guy called Gavin Drake is a psychologist he did a little session with us and so I've got this diary and I just remind myself what I'm grateful for and if you do that at the beginning of the day I mean wow you can just you know I'm living in the UK um I can eat some food I can you know loads of loads of really cool things it puts everything into perspective like it's not so bad you know it could be worse there's always someone in a worse scenario yeah for sure 100 percent so what um have you got like a few takeaways that someone can do um just to make them feel and think a little bit better if they're going to like a kind of cave moment I think utilising what you just said about the gratitude it doesn't necessarily have to be written down but like daily mindfulness about the situation that you're in and the positives that you can take from what you're doing will help everybody yeah there's nobody that can't do that you just sit and breathe deeply for a couple of minutes and just maybe not even focus on anything but just let your mind wander a little bit and think about the things that are happening and try and pick a positive out of what you're doing if you can pick a positive out of what's happening every single day the wave that you're riding won't seem so big and it is it's just a wave it's like surfing like I love surfing but this this is just a big wave that we're riding and you don't guys you don't decide where you go on the wave all right the wave is something that from a storm that happened 2000 miles out to sea it's energy that was sent you've managed to get on that wave you're going to ride it the wave will peter out at some point it might crash on your head there'll be another wave behind it you don't know how far away that wave is we're just riding the wave man ride it out try and stay on your board for as long as possible and if you fall off the board get back on the board again so true so true what a beautiful place to end yeah see mentally we're all in the sea now we're all in the ocean the sun is shining my shining got a vitamin d we're riding that wave definitely thank you so much for coming on the podcast again and I will see you on line for a workout very soon yes thanks very much thank you see y'all