The Dangerous Truth About Men Without a Mission feat. Ben Price

00:00 We've lost initiation for men. We've lost our elders. We've lost all the guidance that we would have had for thousands of years to be like, this is what it means to be a man. Have a think about what you want to do in life. This is how to look after a woman, by the way. And this is what you're going to do when you're stressed. You need to know this stuff just to get through life. That's that's initiation. That's what it's for. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen Show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships, and results they deserve. Get your high-value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com.

00:37 Let's go. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen show. My guest today spent years in some of the most hostile environments on the planet, Afghanistan, Iraq, embedded with special forces and came out the other side asking a question that most men never think to ask. Whose mission am I actually living? Ben Price is an elite life coach for high-performance men, men who on the outside appear to have it all, the business, the family, the success, but are quietly losing a war inside their own head. He saved marriages, rebuilt father of son relationships, and helped men find a version of themselves they didn't even know existed. We're going deep today. Welcome to the show, Ben. Thanks for having me, Johnny. Good, good. We got together last week to do the same on your podcast. So thanks for having me on there.

01:22 And we join, we find each other with you having a newborn baby. Everyone good? Are everyone well? Everyone's well. Yeah. How are you? Are you a bit tired? I am. I'm basically on full-time dad duty with boy number one now. Good, good. And yeah, she's okay. Yeah. It was a challenging, intense labor. And like I was just saying to you, he came out with the cord, cord wrapped around his neck. All the doctors and nurses were rushing in. Then once he came out and he was blue, I fainted. I passed out. I thought your special forces badass.

02:06 So funny, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Nothing hits home like your child being born blue. I can relate to it as well. I pretty much, my daughter was resuscitated at birth. And same thing. I was flipping. They hit the bell and everyone came rushing in. It was like a flipping TV game show. Like wife was screaming. The doctor's going, Mummy, mummy, your baby is fine. Your baby is fine. And then when Rosie opened her eyes and cried, I literally like, whoa. And the nurse slid a chair underneath me. And it was, anyway, it all came out good. Good. And what have you called him? He's called Ned. Nice. Any family story behind Ned?

02:47 No story. Me and my other half struggle to agree on a boy's name that we both like. And Ned has won. Okay. Do you know my test for this, right? And you could have, this might not help. I don't know, but I love sharing this. Here was my test for names. Could I shout it across the rugby pitch? Could I shout it across a pub? And could he say it in court if ever the need arose? That was my kind of test for, is it a good name, right? So yeah, there you go. I'm hoping he never has to do the court part. I know, but he could be there for good reasons, right? You know, true.

03:24 So good. So a real pleasure to have you on. So many, so many questions. And as always, we'll let this sort of flow as naturally as we can. One particular area I'm really interested in is like how you've navigated from being a soldier into being like a civvy. And lots of men struggle with going from one chapter of their life to another, which isn't, you know, is nowhere near as distinctive as that. So I'll come back to ask you about that and get you to share some of your story. But like, how does someone end up in that level of role inside the military?

04:04 Like you were special forces, yeah? Like, I'm really interested in how a teenage lad ends up, you know, in such a role like that. What was your journey into that? So I was in, I was actually part of the intelligence core, which is quite a small part of the military. And you basically attach to different parts of the military and you manage the intelligence. And the intelligence really is simply multiple pieces of information put together and then an assessment made upon it. And then now you have intelligence. And that's basically what it is. Really easy. It is a lot easier than you might. I mean, I could do it. So it's fine. So if I could do it.

04:47 And then I was just, you know, I basically got attached to work with special forces. I worked with Gurkhas, worked with weapons intelligence specialisms. So I did quite a few different roles. So, yeah. but once I worked with those guys, I was it was a way. So I was in the regular army, did a two-year work placement with them. And then I didn't really want to go back to the regular, the regular army, which is kind of full of bullshit, really. It's kind of full of, you know, make sure you trim, make sure you, you know, clean everything, all that rubbish. And yeah, so I just, I just wanted to, I wanted to get out after that.

05:30 And I was ready to get out. So the transition out from soldier into civvy wasn't such a big deal for me because I was excited to go and do it. I knew what I was going to go and do. But the harder, the harder transition for me was selling my gym. So that was way harder than leaving. Yeah, chapters. We're talking about chapters, yeah. So when you came out of the army, what was your position? Were you in a relationship? Did you know where you were going to go to afterwards? Were you like, was it just like been dumped into the real world? Or did you just slot back in? You kind of, I had a really big runway because I'd done so many tours.

06:12 So I'd been to Afghanistan for twice, Iraq twice, and I just had all this holiday built up. And so I had, and then you get gardening leave on top of it. So I had like a six or seven month runway out of the army where I was getting paid. It was amazing. And so I retrained to become a personal trainer. So I had lots of injuries in my body. I'd sorted myself out a little bit more with my health and fitness, learned a lot about nutrition and thought, yeah, I could, I'm enthusiastic about this. It's quite easy for me to help people with this. So this is what I'm going to go and do. So I did that. I went and became a personal trainer.

06:53 Okay. Yeah. And were you with your girlfriend now, wife? Were you together at that time? No, that's that kind of thing. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. I was actually at actually at that point, I was at the tail end of a divorce. Very short, very short. Brilliant. Some more meat for us to chew on. Yeah, it was the tail end of a divorce. And that was, that was quite, that was tricky. That was hard to deal with at the time, but I was pretty young and it was a very short-lived thing. So it wasn't a big, you know, it wasn't that, it wasn't hugely momentous. Yeah, so how old, how old were you when you got married? Must have been about 24, 25, something like that. Maybe a bit, maybe a bit older, actually.

07:35 Yeah, maybe 26. So you were in service, going away on tours. She was waiting for you back at home, soldiers, military wife. And was she? Worst of all, she wasn't from the UK. So she was from, well, Canadian, Mexican. She was, you know, she was not from the UK. And like, I put her in Hereford of all places, which is pretty. You put a ring on it and then went to Afghanistan for. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. I don't know why she wasn't happy. And the Latino blood as well. You can drag me all the way over for this. Okay. And what was the divorce like? Was it bumpy or pretty clean?

08:16 It was pretty smooth. We didn't have any kids or anything. Didn't really have any assets together. So yeah, it was fairly easy. It was more the challenging part is more the you know, not wanting to be single, not wanting to be single again and not wanting to have to go through all of that dating. And what does it mean about me in relationships? Am I no good at this? Yeah. So it was more apprehension. And when the relationship was struggling, did that apprehension hold you back from the breakup or, you know, how clean for you and your mind was the shall I leave or shall I not leave it? Is this over? Can we fix it? Yeah, I think I went from anxious to avoidant, you know, flitted between the two.

08:59 I think I probably was slightly more avoidant. So I would avoid dealing with anything, any disruption in the relationship or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird how many men do that. I did it. I was like, we can get through this. I can't possibly, I said, till death do us part. Like, we've got two kids. Like, this is like, I'm not letting go. And actually, the rational side of me, like hindsight's a wonderful thing. The rational side could have looked at it and gone, you two aren't compatible. Yeah. Like you think this is happening to you. You think she's doing this and that. But actually, bare bones, you aren't, you two aren't compatible. Have a conversation about, is it possible we're really not compatible and this was a bad idea? As opposed to, why are you doing this to me?

09:43 I can't cope. Like, it's not fair. And yeah, I don't know that I could have left sooner, but in hindsight, looking back, it probably would have been better if we had drawn the marriage to a close. close way sooner. Yeah, and I think for me, I was a myth, I was very immature. This is a way of, this is kind of before I had done much personal development. Yeah, didn't really understand my inner, inner lover, you know, the inner, the part of me as a lover. I was very suppressed, as it is in most men in the UK.

10:19 So it was difficult just to know what to do and how to navigate the relationship when it's because no relationship is perfect all the time. It all, you know, it requires work, requires you to work on yourself and the relationship, I think. And I didn't know how to do that back then. No man is complete, even dipping on day, whatever the last day is. But the degree to which a man is willing to work on themselves to become more complete in the journey of getting complete, like being whole, not enough, not enough men do that, which is clearly why you and I do our work.

10:57 But yeah, taking from that, you don't, you probably weren't, you don't consider yourself as you were a standout husband at the time in that situation. Definitely not. No, no. No. Okay, cool. So, so there you are. You've got divorced. She's gone back to Mexico to Canada. Yeah. Did you still speak? Is it amicable? No, no. Chapter closed, chapter closed. So, okay, great. So then you decided you're going to look at what a new career might look like. The gym. So what was the, by the way, part, one of the regular series in my podcast is The Comeback Kings. So perfect that we're really, that we're really digging into this. So you decided to start a business.

11:36 Men generally either fall into starting a business because the need arises and they've got to make some money and they decide actually I don't know what else to do so I'll start a business or there's this drive inside of them maybe they've learned it from their dad or some other role model where I'm going to have the wife the house the car the kids the business like I'm really the master of my own destiny where did your motives come for for creating and starting your own business well my dad does have a business or did have a business and so maybe maybe there is a bit of that from my father but I always just wanted to forge my own path and a big a big part of the story is I interviewed a suicide bomber in Afghanistan yeah yeah and when I interviewed that sorry that's that's your book right as well that's the book yeah yeah yeah what's your book called for everyone who wants to

12:28 go and check it out it's conversations of a suicide bomber and it's depending on when you're listening to this you can get a free copy on my website at the moment of me of me of me speaking it oh great and that's coachbenprice.co.uk or dot com.com coachbenprice.com great yeah and basically so i was interviewing this guy and um sorry just to be clear is he got like a load of flipping semtex trapped to him love it whenever i say this people's minds just go he's got cables wires cut the red one cut the blue one like tom and jerry dynamite sticks no he he'd been arrested so we were working alongside the afghan police right and he'd been arrested and he was in the cell downstairs my office was upstairs and my internal quite as intense then yeah not quite well it's still quite still quite intense

13:18 because he just because all he did was walk past my office and go uh ben there's a suicide bomber downstairs oh and you were like what we've we've been suicide i was like what um and he's like you gotta go into you gotta go speak to him and um i was like oh kind of missed the training on that one yeah what page is that in the book anyways i was like always fascinated always fascinated to to know what it would take for somebody to do it you know what would it take for someone to become a suicide bomber and so i got to ask him so why did you do it and he just he was actually really mentally unwell this guy right and he had been kind of manipulated and led into doing this this was his you know told he was told that this was the only thing for him that his family were going to get looked

14:08 after you're no good for nothing and you know i didn't really think too much about it at the time it was quite amazing that somebody would be kind of led into doing that he certainly wasn't the stereotypical terrorist that you might have in your mind about the suicide bomb yeah i bet i bet that's the case for a lot of them yeah yeah well i think it is in afghanistan but then when you get to so then i went to iraq and in iraq it was a different story they were really well indoctrinated they were um i never met any of the iraqi guys because they were usually successful we didn't capture any but yeah i mean you just think like wow you

14:43 you know how does that happen and the way it happens is they put these guys into a room into a complex they only see each other and they get indoctrinated and they get taught, they get told this is who you are, this is what your purpose is. And you're like, Lami. And then you kind of think about it. And I'm thinking about it. I'm like, well, what's the difference, really? What would it take for me to be that suicide bomber? How much more indoctrination would it take? Because I'm here in Iraq, in Afghanistan, knowing that I could die, knowing that I'm sacrificing my time on the planet. And then you think, well, I'm doing other things. I'm sacrificing my health by smoking. I used to smoke.

15:24 I'm not training properly. I'm not really looking after myself. I'm sleeping late. Still sacrificing. I'm still sacrificing things for what? What is my mission? What is my purpose? Who the hell? When did I ever think? I never thought about it. Yeah. That's powerful. And indoctrination. Yeah. Positive indoctrination that we could do to ourselves and yet fail to do. Or we pick up some concern, doubt, fear. And so we play small instead of being indoctrinated and going all in. Yeah, well, I think, so thinking of me, I was indoctrinated. I was indoctrinated. I was indoctrinated to believe that going to those places was the good thing to do.

16:06 You know, because like, oh, well, he's a terrorist. I'm a good guy. What's the difference? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Both guys with a gun or a mission or whatever. Yeah. There to save someone. You know, I'm the, I'm right. You're wrong. No, you're right. I'm wrong. Like, whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, I, I, I thought, I guess I just always wanted to build my own. I wanted to build my own vision. And there's, and I think I read, you know, I read a quote which was, if you're not building your vision, you're building someone else's. Yeah. And that really made me think, well, you know, if you really go down that path a long way and you really don't think about your mission, you could become a suicide bomber. Because the guy who's creating the suicide bomber has a mission and he's indoctrinated.

16:49 He's giving his that guy the purpose of suicide bomber. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Purpose. Purpose is everything. Yeah. Yeah. This is your purpose. Yeah. And I'm going to tell you, this is your purpose until you believe it. And then that guy just ended up believing it and it cost his life. Like he'd go and blow himself up for that. And is it really his purpose? Is it really his mission? I don't think so. Well, and a lot of us do that. You know, that expectation of what we can achieve. You know, if we come from a working class, like historically, you know, background, coal mining or shipbuilding or something, everyone in that town, like, what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to go and I'm going to work in the mine behind my dad kind of thing. Like, that was, that was old school indoctrination.

17:33 But you know what? Interestingly, maybe right now, there's so little of that. There's so little clarity for if we're talking about men and boys. That's some younger men without that, without that sense of, I know where I'm going to end up and there's some certainty around that work and that money and that journey for my life. The lack of clarity is part of what's fueling loss of masculinity, a loss of confidence, increasing male suicide, dropping testosterone, like so many things that we can highlight as modern conditions that plague men.

18:10 100%. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think you're right. I think there's so much of our lifestyle and like the news and the Netflix and the porn and the gambling and the smoking and the drinking. It's all designed. I mean, it might not be designed this way. We might not be that. It's an interesting conversation, though. Yeah. Yeah. But we might just, it's all numbing. And the reason I think it's just a, I'm not that skeptical to think that there's some like, you know, thing controlling it all. I think that it's just a product of we're trying to gather, we've lost initiation for men. So we've lost our elders. We've lost initiation. So we've lost all the guidance that we would have had for thousands of years to be like, right, this is what it means to be a man.

18:55 Have a think about what you want to do in life. This is how to look after a woman, by the way. And this is what you're going to do when you're stressed. You need to know this stuff just to get through life. That's that's initiation. That's what it's for. And then on top of that, we now have really, really smart people who are excellent at getting our attention and selling us shit. And if you're thinking for yourself, they can't say, they can't convince you you need this fancy gadget. Yeah. You know, or they can't convince you you need the car. Now, those people have a lot of money and they get better and better at doing it. And so that's what I think has happened. No, it's powerful. And they're doing it to our kids. Like if you look at what cartoons look like, here we are talking about little kids.

19:36 I got two as well. Mine are teenagers now. You look at what a cartoon was like 10 years ago, let alone 25 years ago, 50 years ago. compared to now. Now it's just it's like so fast, so loud, so bright. So the kids are going, oh, wow, this is good. This is really good. But it looks like they're having a nice time, but what's going on inside is the chemical reaction where they're going, oh, yeah, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, loving this, loving this. And then you take it away from them. No, give me more. My girlfriend is a primary school teacher. Kids are little young primary school kids. She's like in a good area, right? As well. Like they're mental.

20:15 They've got behavior problems and send numbers are off the charts and a whole load of stuff. And then she's putting a program in place to have mobile phones and devices, you know, just to discouraging parents from having them and not letting kids bringing them into school. The backlash, like the resistance. Really? Of course, it's not like 100%, but it's at least a bit more than 50%. And so when we think about what's going on with all this, whether it's intentional, whether it's just people making money, the algorithms and how they're geared towards shifting the way we work, shifting the way our energy is produced, shifting our attention, our ability to stay focused and

21:02 interested in something. It's all messed up. We're in a bad place, let alone the other stuff that's going on. But on the level of purpose and vision, yes, it's missing for a lot of men. It's definitely missing. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing to really realize, and I think I might have just said they, you know, like the they, like detaching us from whoever it is who's really smart at getting us on the app, it's actually us. Do you know what I mean? Yep. Turning us and using them. Us. And whoever's listening to this, it's you because you're using it and you're, you might be employed into a role which isn't really your calling in life because no one ever asked you what it is.

21:41 So it's also you. And I really believe that as men, we've got to take strong action to corral other men to bring them along and figure out who we are and why we're here and then take strong action to like bring other people along with that and like find those find those other people and help them understand who they are and why they're here. I think it's really important thing. And having two boys now, I'm just really very passionate about it. I look at them and think, I'm excited to help you figure out who you are and why you're here as early as possible so that you don't spend fucking six months like I did in a war zone

22:24 four times, you know. Yeah. Yeah. With the idea that, oh, this will, this will be the answer. I'll find myself here. Yeah. Yeah. You're not even, I don't even know if I was thinking about that, really. Yeah. You know, I didn't. Was it like soldier like being in a war? Was it was it in any level fun? No, not at all. So it's just green. No, you know, I always say that. I don't mean that flippantly. Like, I mean, it's the life of a soul, you know, is it like, yeah, camaraderie and we're. Yeah, okay. So I think actually that's maybe unfair. So the army is good for men, I believe, except the part where we go to war and kill people. And you have to remember that is what the military is for. It's to defend ourselves. Yes. And I think it's like a useful thing.

23:08 We definitely want to have a military. I'm not saying we don't want one. But yeah, I think there's lots of useful things that I learned from the military. Personal discipline is definitely one of them. I think just integrity, being a man of your words, being honest. I think that's important. I think I'm better at it. Let's reverse to two years ago because I had an amazing coach who helped me level up in a big way. But two years ago, I was good at it. And then he helped me go much higher with it. I was better at it than most people. And I always got confused when somebody wouldn't be honest or wouldn't keep their word. I was like, how do you live with yourself knowing that you've said

23:49 yeah, but people just get used to that? So I think that was positive indoctrination. Yeah. Well, and I hear values in that, which I'm going to come on to in a moment, actually. So on a societal level, do you think conscription would be good? Like just to just to shape and mold men slightly better than what they are? Maybe. Do I think it would be good? No. I think it'd be, I think it'd be better. I think it'd be better than not having it. But I don't think it would be the answer to the answer to why have so many men lost and why are so many men taking their life. I think the answer is actual conscious initiation. So when I say conscious initiation, it's like, this is what you're going to do.

24:34 This is what it means. This is what you're going to try and figure out. On an unconscious Unconscious level. initiation is like I joined the army. I did an Iron Man. I like, I've done events and things to try and, I was seeking something. I was trying to initiate myself. I was, you know, trying to prove myself. I didn't realize it at the time, but that's what I was trying to do. That is so true for so many men, being unconsciously aware of why we do what we do and the underlying hope that's underneath that. Yeah, like I'm going to find myself by being a soldier. I'm going to find myself, prove myself by being like completing a triathlon, an Iron Man, a tough mudder.

25:14 And then levels of that, of course, because a tough murder in Hyde Park is one thing. A flipping Iron Man off the coast of northern Scotland is a completely different thing, you know? Yeah. Okay, right. Back to the story. So you started a gym with the hope that you were going to create a business and it was going to thrive and you were going to be successful and live happy ever after. What was the reality there? Well, I started, I was floating around doing personal training for a while and I did quite well. I did really well at it. And then, and then I got this opportunity to basically start. I started a small group PT thing and more people started coming and I was like, okay, we can make this work and built it out.

25:58 And then we got some space in, I had lots of, I had some massive help. Like I had, I was basically coaching a company. I was right. And they gave me space in a warehouse. So that was, it was amazing. Like, it was a great start to things. And sorry, on that point, right? Yeah. You might not have known this at the time. Was that a lucky thing or did you create the opportunity? Did create, yeah, I did create the opportunity, but I didn't know that I had. But you have to, you have to look for luck, don't you? I think you have to be open to luck. Lucky people think they're lucky.

26:36 Absolutely. Yeah. So how you showed up? Yeah. Yeah. That's an important question. And it's kind of a leading question because I was hoping you were going to answer it that way. But a lot of guys don't realize this. How they show up, what they're thinking at the time, what their expectations are of the occasion. Like the, like, I don't know why I'm going to this, but I'm going to meet some cool people. I don't know why I'm doing this at this business, but I'm going to lean right into it because I think something good's going to come out of it more than just the X00 pounds that they're paying me. Yeah. Oh, they're never going to buy. Yeah. Well, then they're never going to fucking buy. Yeah. The opposite. And you're only going to see the reasons they're never going to buy. Yeah. People have no money. Well, guess what? You're only going to see where people have no money.

27:18 So, yeah, I always do this little exercise, which is I get people to look around my office if you're watching or look around your own office and see what's red in the office and just have a little look, see what's red, spot out a few things. And then close your eyes and now think about everything that's blue. And you didn't see anything blue, most likely, because you were looking for the red. And your brain has to filter out things. Your brain has to do that to get through life because there's a lot of people. We go mad. We would go mad. Yeah. So anyway, back to the story. Yeah. So here's the gym. You've got a gym going. Speakers started to join.

27:59 COVID. Oh, joy. The love of the magic of COVID. The giver, the opportunity generating experience called COVID. Yeah. So COVID, you know, it was going quite well. Basically, the gym was going quite well. And then COVID came along. I think it was the, oh, yeah, that's right. It was the day that we signed the lease to pay rent. It was like the day or the month that we went into COVID into lockdown. So luckily I had some savings because I had this space for free for a while. And I rented out all the kit. I rented out a kit to the members and people lost a lot of members, but a lot of them stayed. And we didn't get any funding either because we hadn't been paying any rates from the council. So every gym that had been forced to close got like quite a lot of money.

28:42 I think it was like 15 grand or 20 grand or something. And we didn't get that. And but we just sort of muddled through that. And we did, we did, you know, we got a few new members as well. We survived it. And when we came out of it, I was like, right, I really felt as though it was very important for the community to have the gym there. And actually, I need to take this seriously. You know, so I did. I got a marketing agency involved and we did really quite well. The star I didn't know how to sell. I had no idea how to sell. I thought I knew how to sell. I didn't.

29:19 So they got me all these leads and I had no idea really what to do. The only time I'd ever sell a member was when they turned up to the gym, which is, you know, turns out that's a real big sign that they want to join if they've actually remembered. But if they've just seen you on Facebook, you really got to. to phone them anyway. So, I learned how to sell, sold a lot of these leads, and it went really well, went really, really well. Yeah, and how did you build a team? And how did you teach yourself to sell? Oh, I had a coach, I had a coach, okay, multiple coaches. And did so, where'd that idea of needing a coach? When what was your first experience of that? What was your first awareness of as a guy, as a human, I need a coach to improve myself?

30:03 Yeah, good question. So, I think actually, I had a guy when I was still in the military, my kickboxing coach, whose name is Gary Jones. If anyone wants to look him up, he's um because he's a badass, right? He's he's a he's a meditative, he's a meditative, yeah. He's not a military guy, he's like, um, he's uh, just lives in that area, you know, right, right. Anyway, he started sort of coaching me a bit without me realizing it. Yeah, asking me kind of interesting questions, and uh, I thought it was a bit weird to be honest because you hadn't experienced it before, or just because he was weirdo. Well, he is quite spiritual as well, okay, right, yeah.

30:45 So, different levels, yeah. I was completely unspiritual, I had no idea what spiritual meant, I didn't have any idea what that meant, and um, you know, I was a military guy, right? You didn't, yeah, it's not the sort of thing you're working on in the military, so yeah, so I thought he was a bit weird, but then you know, I started to see some of that work and it started to make sense to me, and that just opened me up to it a bit more. Oh, there's another, there's another thing where I read a book called The Slight Edge, and that was because I wanted to invest in property, and that book was about compound interest, okay, getting interest. That was my first book, and it's brilliant, it's a really good book. And not many people know about it because they never done any formal marketing for it, it's all word of mouth.

31:28 Okay, I'll put it on the list: slight edge, Jeff, Jeff Olson, The Slight Edge, brilliant. And I recently reread it, and it's like feels quite modern, still feels quite good. There's a great book on the compound effect by a guy called Darren Hardy, and it's called The Compound Effect. Yeah, and there's that thing where they go, Would you rather have a million quid or would you rather have a penny that doubles in value every day? It's something like right up until the like the day it hits a million, like right up in some sort of whatever the number is like 300 days away or whatever. You're still losing, still losing, still losing. And then the day it tips over, you like obliter, you know, you like you go from a million to 10 million or something, and that's the power of compound.

32:12 Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't know whether it'll be interesting to know whether he nicked that from The Slight Edge because that's in there as well. Oh, okay, good. Um, so so I read that book that got me quite interested that got me more interested. And stop me smoking. I used to smoke because the idea is like one cigarette's not going to harm you. But then 10 cigarettes a day. Well, even 10 cigarettes a day doesn't really doesn't matter that much, really. But 10 cigarettes a day for the next year or the next 10 years, now you've got cancer. And it's like, oh, suddenly I got cancer. No, you didn't suddenly get it. It's like a compound effect of all the cigarettes you've had.

32:49 So people talk about it in the positive. People remember it's also working against you. So if you're not sleeping, if you're not looking after your nutrition, if you're not doing exercise, it's going to compound over time. And you'll get away with it because the thing is, you'll get away with it early, especially when you're younger. Get away with it. Yeah, yeah. The power of youth. We're unstoppable. You can't harm me. I'm 20. Yeah. So, yeah. So, so I read that. And then I think I was just reading books for a while. I never had a coach. And then I think the moment where I employed the marketing agency, and then I got this coach off the back of that.

33:29 I just met him. But to be honest, they were useful at the time and they taught me what I needed to know, but I didn't have a proper coach, I wouldn't say, until two years ago. Yeah. Like a real coach who really like helped me see who I am, why I'm here, and my uniqueness and my power. That's not what I had from these previous coaches. They were all tactics coaches, if you know what I mean. Like they'll tell me what to do and we'd go and do it. And that will get you so far. But eventually you're going to hit a point where it just doesn't seem to work anymore. And you get, for me, I got a bit frustrated with it all. And then met this guy and it was totally different. Well, we'll definitely dig into that into a second. But so the business is going under.

34:13 You're closing the business. By the way, are you if you met your wife at this time? Are you married? Or what's so? We were not married, but we met. She joined the gym. Okay. Oh, classic. Let me help you with that. Yeah, she joined the gym. That was that was. was during COVID. Yeah, so we met during COVID. Yeah, okay. And then we started. Yeah. But kind of the short version of this is that she stuck with you through that whole journey. Yeah. So I sold the gym about two years ago. And that, yeah, she, she stuck with me. So the gym was going really well. And then it started not going very well. And I employed another agency to try and help me.

34:53 Really, it cost me a lot of money, like 40 grand money. And not all agencies are good, right? Yeah, it didn't work. And it just put me into debt. And that was when it was really hard because it was my identity. That was the identity where it was like, oh, who am I? I'm such a failure because the gym's failing. I'm a failure. But yeah, Ellie stuck with me all through that. Nice. And so there you go. The business is closed. Did it just clear the debts or did you come out with anything to it just cleared the debts? Okay, just washed your face. Okay. How are you? There's a whole story around that. The whole story around that, which was like someone trying to go behind my back.

35:35 So I was trying to sell it to this group of ex-members. They went behind my back and spoke to my landlord and tried to offer him a better, a longer lease and to activate the break clause in my lease, which was like, you'd be out in six months. I'd have been homeless. The business would have been homeless. And I'd had all this kit. Yeah. And at what point did you become aware of that and how did you handle it? Well, there were sort of two groups. There was a group of current members who I eventually did sell to, but they didn't have much money. And this other group who were, you know, looking to buy for more money. And they strung me along, strongly along, strongly along. And I was like, you know, what's going on? But I was too weak. I was too weak to confront them about it until I started working with the coach

36:19 whose name is Sonika. And he really like helped me step up and step into my power, become more of a king and be more assertive and like call people out on their shit. And not in a, I hate you way, just like assertive, just like firm. And there were some rumors in the community as well that they were going to do it. And I was like, no, they would never do that. No, I was being too like, I was just being a bit too put too weak, basically. And that's, that's a, that's a great story because generally when men are being too weak, deep down they know it. Yeah. And then it's a question of either or two things actually. It's a question of listening to that gut instinct and feeling like, actually, there's something here I shouldn't avoid.

37:04 And then having the strength and wherewithal and faith that pushing through that doubt, pushing through that uncertainty is worth it. Like nothing hard is, sorry, wasn't nothing, what do they say? Nothing that's nothing hard. Everything that's hard work is worth having. Everything that's easy probably isn't worth worth doing, right? So yeah, pushing through that awkward moment to have, to make the decision, to have the conversation. Yeah, I think we're also, we're not taught it. Like it's not so much a failing. It wasn't a failing of me. It was just that I hadn't didn't have the skills. Okay. Does that make sense?

37:42 Like, yes. I, because the skill is listening to what's going on in my body. I would just ignore that. I didn't even know there was really anything going on in my body. You know, I had to, when I started working with Sonico, I had to really reconnect with my body because most of us are in our heads overthinking things, ruminating. That's why we wake up at 3 a.m. in the morning, like with loads of stuff going through our head. And that's why, you know, I used to wake up in the morning, absolute dread running through my to-do list. It was all in my head. I did have a dread in my stomach as well, but I didn't really, I wasn't attuned to it.

38:24 Okay. So who introduced you to this, this guy? Did you seek him out or did you get introduced? Yeah. So Sonika was speaking at an event, really amazing event. If you ever get the opportunity to go, it's called The Ultimate Experience. And it just so happened to speak to the right person at the right time and got introduced. And it was being held in the UK. And it's usually in the States or in the last one, the one before that was in Mumbai in India. And yeah, just so happens. And he was one of the speakers. And I was just like, wow, this guy's amazing. Really grounded presence and just authenticity.

39:04 All of the speakers were amazing at the event. And there are YouTube recordings as well. And there was no selling. You know, I've been to lots of these events where they're just like pitching, pitching. It's like a pitch fest. Run to the back of the room. Yeah, I'm a nightmare. Flipping, you've got to bolt me to the chair. If I go to one of those things, lock me down because I'm going to be buying. buying stuff that I don't need. I've done it, I've done it. I don't do it anymore, though. I don't think really, but I'm just a bit sick of it now, to be quite honest. Well, when I go to those things, I'm one of them, I'm interested in what's being said. Like, can I learn anything from this? But also, I'm interested in the machine that I'm in. Like, wow, what's it took to put an event like this on?

39:44 What's it took to give a talk that at the end of it, 200 people run literally run to the back of the room and spend thousands of pounds? Like, what did he just do? And can I do that? Yeah, well, the thing that was different, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong because if it serves the person, then it probably is a useful thing for them. Well, it is a useful thing, right? So, if you spend two grand and it's really useful and authentic and it serves you fucking brilliant, but that's not been my experience very often. Um, I believe that most of those people are very, very good at selling and not great at delivering.

40:22 Yeah, and their effort is gone in. It's rare to find somewhere where you get both. But this event wasn't anything like that, it was just authentic presence, and I was such a breath of fresh air. And then I listened to a podcast and I thought it was really good. And then I started working with him basically. So, it happened quite, you know, I think he had the difference. There's different ways to skin the cat, isn't there? There's the scarcity and urgency tactics that people use, which kind of lean into your fear and then your inner kind of, I don't know, you're in a fear-anxiety state whenever you engage with that thing.

41:00 Whereas what Sonika did was very much he was an authority, you know, he was a presence, an authentic authority, and a presence. He was a king, he's a king in the truest sense of that word, and you're just it's inspiring. And I'm sensing in what you're sharing right now, is it a personal awakening for yourself, right? There's a whole journey gone on here of crudely speaking, soldier or boy, young man, soldier, husband, business owner, all of that disappearing and or evolving, shaping into something new.

41:37 And then, as the business closes, what might seem to some people random opportunities come up, random introductions, random choice of a coach, random girlfriend to meet at your gym and fall in love with. But, but actually, there's a there's a direction hit for me when a man is really waking up to himself, there's a direction of flow. And if we tune into it, there should be no surprise who shows up. It's then a question of whether we grab it. And here you are. That's why we're talking, right? Yeah, it's why we're talking, yeah. So, when you went to grab it, right, what came up next? Obviously, basically, I'm leaning into how did you decide to start doing the coaching work that you're doing, and what did that take to get started?

42:20 So, I was, oh, I was quite lucky in a sense because I had a few people who were interested in working with me one-to-one. And so, I just made them an offer and they accepted it. And first time that happened, I was like, shit, yeah, it's a guest. And it was incredible. And it was, I obviously can't really give too much details, but the person was in a relationship for a very long time, multiple, multi-millionaire, in a relationship, hated the relationship, didn't want to be there, but everything looked good, right?

43:01 Literally, everything looked good from the outside. The mirage. Amazing car, amazing house, flying all over the world, and relationship. No kids, but yeah, it wasn't the reality. And that person's world was very grey, very, very grey. And yeah, we basically had an amazing session. First session I did, we went quite deep into all of the stories. So I helped people win the war in their minds. So the war in that person's mind was just, there was just so much. And we just figured out, we just cleaned a lot of it out, just cleaned a lot of it up. And then they went away again to Dubai or somewhere like that.

43:46 Came back and they're like, Dubai is amazing. You know, I've never seen it. Really? Right. I've never really seen it because I've always had my eyes. Like, everything's been so gray. That was his experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was amazing. And then that was like, that was one of the moments where I was like, oh, this is some, this is some really powerful work. And I can do it. And actually, I found it really quite easy. You know, what seems like child's play to you seems like hard work to others. Well, this is this is very much child's play to me. I couldn't believe. believe that it had such a powerful effect. And another person who had IBS in their gut, and their husband had a woman, and her husband had recently died.

44:31 And we kind of went through the story that she had in her mind about it. And most people would go, Oh, it's really sad, isn't it? And I, I, and, and she was like, Yeah, it's really sad. And she was really upset. And yeah, it was sad, but also it wasn't as sad as him still being alive because he had a really horrendous disease. Yeah, yeah. Right. So I questioned that story. And as soon as she went, oh, yeah, no, I actually wanted him to die. Her gut, she went, oh, my gut feels better. Literally in that moment, like that. And it wasn't, it's just because it wasn't a normal thing to say, but it was the truth.

45:10 Yeah. Yeah. And I, some of my early, well, not so much early, but some of my journey, personal development journey, and led me into coaching, time spent at Landmark Education and some of their events. I never forget a weekend where a similar story, a woman was upset about her husband dying and there's a whole story about her life was the way it was. And then, and the, and the Landmark from Leedy just stopped her and said, How long are you going to be like this? She was like, well, I'm upset, like forever. And basically, he just challenged her. He said, that's ridiculous. Why don't you just pick it, like, just say, like, be really upset for two months or be really upset for six weeks? Like, what's it going to be?

45:51 Because, and then you're going to stop it, right? And she's like, you don't understand. And it was just beautiful. Like, something that was one of those kind of Tony Robbins type moments where she came up and they broke it down and she was, then she's in tears. And then like the whole kind of realization of how long she'd been holding on to it. And then this moment where she's like, wow, what would that be like to let go of that? Just like the story you just shared there. Amazing. And the funny thing is, I've come to this quite naturally. I like, because I realized that people were coming to the gym and they were kind of beating themselves up a lot in the gym with exercise, giving themselves a hard time for something that had happened and they'd complain about stuff. And there were some people who would sit, you know, who would come and sit and talk with me and

46:34 I'd kind of just naturally question them on the truth and the validity of their story. It was like, I'm empathetic. I understand that you've lost your husband. And is it true that you believe this? And then I kind of, and then I discovered there's a whole world of coaches and therapists and consultants who are doing all of this as a full-time thing. So I was quite encouraging to step into just doing it, just going for it. Because the gym was fucked anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant. So look, let's use the last 10 minutes just to talk a bit about like the way that you like to work with me. You know, every coach, generally speaking, has got their program. I've got the high value man system for living and the way that I work.

47:16 And in our conversations together in the last, you know, two weeks, we're very aligned in our work. Okay. But share with us some of what you take a guy through. You mentioned earlier on about vision and you mentioned integrity and honesty, honesty and integrity, the same things, but values, right? So having the importance of having a vision, you've talked about values in there. Share with us some of the sort of how you get men to start out on this journey. So I run a, well, it's 90 days or a year. And it's called the Kingmaker. And it's an initiation process.

47:58 And basically what it does is it guides men through the different archetypes of a man and helps you understand your shadows. Because I think the most important message really for men is that you're not broken. You've just never been taught how to operate as a man. So the archetypes, and I thought I was broken for a long time. And I discovered these archetypes and I was like, oh, shit, I'm not, there's nothing broken about me. And just, I've never been taught how to operate. So the archetypes, the first one is the warrior, which obviously is very fitting with my background. So it can get people to the gate. I call this like gates you've got to pass through. The gate of the warrior, you can do in about 90 days.

48:40 And that's really about getting your ability to get shit done online. So stop procrastinating, stop self-sacrificing yourself, stop self-sabotaging, and just get shit done. That's kind of the first thing you need. Most people are trying to do the other stuff, like have a great relationship, be a great lover, and be a great leader in their business. And they can't even get shit done properly. So that for me is sorting out your body, your discipline, and your appropriate use of force, not being overly aggressive, but still being assertive. So that's the warrior. Once the warrior, warrior is online, then everything else can start happening. The next part is the magician, the magician we spoke a bit about earlier, the shadow of the magician.

49:23 So the magician is the problem solver. And the magician will do things. He will do things that are true to him rather than manipulation or detaching. So those are the shadows. Overly manipulative. You know, you see a lot of men who are quite manipulative. They withhold information when they should be given it. They're not true. They're not honest, not being a man of their word. And so it's just, again, it's understanding those shadows. And then the third one is the gate of the lover. And the lover is really our empathy, our relationships with people, all people and all businesses, relationships, really.

49:59 So this is very important. And for most British people, we suppressed our lover massively. And most British men, we have our lover is just either in shadow or immature. And in shadow for the lover looks like the addicted lover. You know, when you get into a relationship, you'll just like forget everything else. And just like, I'm all in. And then you're like, and then you go, shit, I really should have focused on my business or my career. I'm going to go into something called monk mode, which is the term all the kids are using now. Monk mode is where you just don't do anything apart from focus on your business. So they kind of flip between these two things rather than getting to the point of maturity. And the problem with the monk mode is you get shit done and you build everything,

50:45 but then you have no relationships or you have a terrible relationship, which is the state of most guys who are. There's no balance. There's no appropriate focus on all areas. But again, like initiation would have taught us all of these things how to be. And then the final gate is the gate of the king. And the king is your inner leader, really. And the tyrant is a shadow of the king. And the weakling is a shadow of the king. And, you know, sometimes we flip between tyrant and weakling. All the shadows we flip between. But ultimately, it's about becoming a king. And then when you're a king, yeah, everything just flows a lot easier. You're on your path. You've still got to work on all of it, but ultimately it's about becoming a king. Yeah.

51:29 Yeah. And no, no surprise, how aligned that is with my version of things is almost identical with different, you know, with different titles, different words. Yeah. And I came up with mine in my own mind, I came up with it myself. Right. Now, but I'm not so arrogant to say that I literally came up with it. No, it's 25 of reading and studying and experiences. And actually, it was the divorce and my brother's suicide and the whole everything that happened around that time. It took that seismic flipping cluster

52:10 for it all to gain clarity, basically. Yeah. It's the same. I mean, I started that self-development journey, I don't know, good 10, 15 years ago. I don't know when I read the first book, Slight Edge, but just all of the stuff I build is really, it's just for me. And then I give it out to other people. So like the journal, I built a journal and, you know, it's got all of this, it's a 90-day journal. But really, it was for me because I often struggle with focus and like I get lots of ideas. I'm quite creative, which can be very distracting. So I need it. I suffer material myself.

52:51 Yeah. So I was like, right, I need a, I need to know every week, like, what did I decide to focus on? Because I can't remember what my quarterly intentions were. So I do, I would go and do these workshops. I'd go and do all of these quarterly workshops and things and do the work. And then it would just go in a draw and I'd forget about it. So I was like, right. So I'd create a journal and do that every week, every day now. And that's phenomenal. That's a good process. Journaling is so important, which is another whole subject. But as a way of wrapping up, kind of to bring it back full circle, I just really got this. Maybe I'm a bit of a dog with a bone about it in talking to you, but just a great sense of chapters for you.

53:33 And I'm not forcing this topic upon you, right? But it does feel like this, this to me. What would you say to a guy? What kind of encouragement would you give to a guy who's at a point where loads of stuff just doesn't seem to be clicking? It seems to be like turbulence, basically. What kind of encouragement would you want to give a guy who's at that point and wondering what comes next? Good question. As much as it sucks right now, know that it's feedback, that it's feedback.

54:09 feedback that you are probably not heading in the right direction somewhere, and do whatever it takes to get in the right direction. And then, secondly, to that, get out of your head and stop overthinking it. And the way to get out of your head is to breathe, um, learn about breathing and sort of tune into the emotions that you have in your body because they are not, they are not, uh, they are masculine. One of the most masculine things, manly things you can do is to master your emotions. Yeah, and they're incredibly good feedback. That is the truth. That is the truth. And I'm aware, you know, it's always the end bits, which I try and bring it up at the beginning. Like, how do people get hold of you?

54:52 Which is why we mentioned the uh your website and people could download the book from there at the moment. But I'm also aware you got uh you do some camping trips and stuff. Yes, yeah, yeah. So once a month we go camping, which you know, hopefully you'll come along one day, Johnny. Um, I'm just literally looking on my other computer screen at this like bunkhouse, so it's like a shack in the middle of Wales, which I really want to book. But it's not glam, it's not glamorous, it's but it's about getting back into nature, it's about sitting around a fire, it's really just about being with other men without technology, eating some great food, and being with each other and discussing things that we don't normally get to discuss because we're always wearing a mask, we're always performing a role.

55:35 And you just there's something about getting into nature, and there's something about sitting around a fire that you just cannot it's just it's just so essential and needed for us as men, I believe. Yeah, I think we've done that for thousands and thousands of years, and we don't do anymore. And like you said earlier, we've kind of lost-well, if you said this someone else, we've lost the third space of like the pub and the you know place to hang out, and and we also used to do it around a fire, yeah, yeah, we spoke about that last week. Yeah, absolutely, literally that whole line about men don't talk. And I'm like, well, do you know what? I'm pretty sure that men have always been put into groups, whether they're digging a hole, chasing a bear, going to war, digging out mines, like groups of blokes doing stuff together.

56:23 Now, they might not have all had conversations about, so what's it like at home these days? But without doubt, there was chit chat, there was banter, there was relationship, there was camaraderie, brotherhood, and modern day life has stripped away so much of that. Yeah, it's really powerful. I never, I never have had anyone struggle or not want to speak at all about anything. I don't like say you have to, you know, speak, but it surprises me that I've never had anyone struggle or want not want to say anything. Like they struggle a bit, but then I just coach them through it. But they never, never say, I don't want to say anything. It's amazing. I think that men don't talk is one of the biggest notions statements that is propagated against men.

57:05 The reality is men aren't given the spaces to talk. Yeah. I completely agree. And we're not kind of because we don't have those spaces, we're a bit uneducated on how to do it. Of course, yeah. You don't know what you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But once we have the space and once it's kind of once once people know that's the intention of being there, it's like, yeah, sweet. I'm here for this. And there's, it's brilliant. And some of the stuff that comes up is really, really powerful. Like people talking about suicidal thoughts, people talking about maybe part of a family member who's taken their own life. That's come up a few times. And this has happened like months ago, but they've never had the space to talk about it. Yeah.

57:47 Just how they're feeling about it and just how they're what they wish they could have done and what they could have said. And, you know, absolutely stuff like that. All sorts. So, Ben, I'm going to wrap this up. So, just literally, as we as we hit the hour, I always bring these to a close. CoachbenPrice.com is where people can find you. Oh, your podcast as well, right? Which I'm on. Which is true. The best episode is the one that I've just been on. Although the one with Penny Power is a great episode, Penny Power is a beautiful episode. Yeah, the Ben Price experience is the podcast. Yeah, good lad. Good lad. Thank you. Put your name up front. All the best podcasts have got their names, got their names. Joe Rogan experience. Exactly. Like, who are we to argue with, Joe, right? Ben, so good to have spent this time with you.

58:29 Thanks for being with us today and sharing your story. Lost love. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with fellow dads. Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high-value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.