Living A Life Of Adventure with Anthony Willoughby

00:00 In this episode of the Team Super Dad podcast, I get together with explorer Anthony Willoughby to talk hitchhiking, travelling the world and living with nomadic tribe leaders. Roll theme! Welcome to Team Super Dad Real dads creating their best lives ever More time More money More fun You are not alone you're on team super dad Welcome to the Team Super Dad podcast. It is great to have you here as always Nomadic tribe leaders, try saying that in an introduction it's not easy, not easy! This is the team super dad podcast we are modern dads creating our best lives ever more time more money and More fun the most important part of that more fun if you've been here before thank you so much for coming back And if you're new then welcome. It's great to have you on board how did you find us?

00:58 So, Anthony Willoughby is a dude. I won't tell you too much about how we met and stuff because that's in the conversation but all our conversations together on the Team Super Dad podcast are about helping dads guide us through this minefield that is being a busy dad working hard trying to make our relationship the best it can be having fun with our kids keeping healthy eating right Going on holiday, buying a house. What else? Oh blimey! Sleeping, fitting the matching, seeing old friends making new friends having a hobby sex like there's a lot of it you know whether you're married and trying to hold it together or thinking this could be better than this had a conversation with the lady the other day her husband had an affair during lockdown and they've split up I don't advocate having an affair that's for certain

02:00 If your relationship isn't working then it's time to fix it or get out. Don't do the dirty you know and if you've had it done to you well that's tough I've worked with loads of dads who have been through that But you've ultimately got to have a look at some of the responsibility in that. What was the relationship like? Why did she go off with someone else? You picked her, you know! Did she pick her wrong and to start with I see in so many single mum groups or parenting groups mums talking about their dads being useless this and terrible that... And you don't get a lot of love back when you say things like this but you chose to have a kid with him. You picked him

02:43 Pick better people to have children with, you know. And maybe you did to start with and maybe it's not going quite as you planned That's what we do here at Team Super Dad It's about working this stuff out and this conversation with Anthony today is also about working stuff out He's traveled the world he's hitch-hiked, he's passed that on to his kids If you follow him on LinkedIn the pictures are hilarious He's got like they're pictures of him So, I'm going to start off with a little bit of background on the Jonnie Jensen Show. He's from the sort of there 70s and 80s and he looks like a cross between Monty Python and The Gumball Rally you know it's just on a mountainside with a bowler hat on drinking champagne with with a bunch of you know nomadic tribe leaders

03:39 It's wisdom, it's real wisdom learnt from these tribes leaders you know how they bring up their boys. How they teach them experiences of leadership and what it means to be a woman in these communities and not you know...it's not all that you might think about as old-fashioned and they don't have much say but that's not the case either Anthony now in his work is teaching and sharing a lot of this nomadic wisdom, this tribal rites of passage and guidance. And he shares loads of that with us in this podcast

04:15 If you're a dad, well that's probably why you're listening. if you're a mum we do have a lot of mum listeners welcome! Spread the love share this with other men in your life We are building the Team Super Dad community You might like to come and connect with us in the network? You just go to teamsuperdad.com forward slash network and you can become part of that free group And The Hero Academy if you are ready To make gains in your life And Support from other dads just like you. That's what we're up to inside of Team Super Dad and hopefully as we move out of lockdown, we can start planning the face-to-face events again. Weekends, camping, firewalking events, adrenaline adventures, retreats with our families or the whole shebang! You're going to miss out if you don't come over to teamsuperdad.com and get connected So with five minutes in let's get on with a show I'll see you on the other side

05:31 Good morning, how are you? I'm good sir. How are you? Really well thank you! Brilliant we met about a month or so ago didn't we? We did yeah through a wonderful sort of strange connection which i think what life is all about which is serendipity and never knowing where a conversation will lead Yeah, exactly. People would... it would serve people well I believe it serves myself well and people should lean into this is when they have those like they part of maybe as crude as passing someone in the street but certainly on LinkedIn lots of profiles come you know get come past me on their LinkedIn recommends or whatever

06:16 You get this feeling that you just noticed someone and I notice you and then i was looking at straight away looking your description, Looking at rites of passage and different ways that fathers and their sons, and fathers and their daughters pass on their experiences. And I shared with you when we first spoke about the experience I had at a American Indian powwow back when I was a teenager and how that had really like left a mark on me. I was, I just had such an amazing weekend and i was wondering around the Team Super Dad courses because of my firewalking experiences. And I was thinking what could

07:01 Dads do with their sons. What kind of rites of passage, what kind of lessons should we be passing on to our sons and daughters? And then there you were in my LinkedIn stream! So it's either as weird as they're all listening to us or the universe is in our favour, bringing us together and I'd like to think its the latter. Although increasingly it probably is Google listening to us all the time. So tell us a little bit about yourself, there's so many things that we could tell us but just introduce yourself first and sort of who you are and what you do? And then we'll just literally dive back into your story and dig into this subject but yeah tell us who you are and what you do! Yeah I'd be delighted well i'm Anthony Willoughby thank you very much indeed now I've just turned 70

07:53 I'm sort of life enthusiast, is how I would describe it. I am dedicated to Churchill's definition of success which is the success in life is stumbling from one disaster to another while maintaining one's enthusiasm. I've set up an organization called The Cock-Up Club when we get together to celebrate the wisdom of life experience As a small boy, I was brought up in Africa. Educated in this country never understood the thing about what was going on here when it's told for she has far too stupid to go to university but would like to get to the States we did that hitchhike around South America and then at age 22 I hopped on the Trans-Siberian Express

08:38 with 30 British agencies. I had a stall on the Bayswater Road selling bamboo hair slides and everything else, and I just wanted to get out of this country. And so I spent the next 30 years living in Japan but I think you know rites of passage is a fascinating idea when i think for me some of my main lessons on that was When I saw that when back in the late seventies or no sorry early seventies, late sixties a play came out called Hair and the women were naked on it. The men were naked and it was really sort of avant-garde when I was still at school and I went to the Shaftesbury Theatre and I watched this play And I thought wow fantastic! So I went backstage where I went to the stage door

09:29 And I saw the door was slightly ajar and i pushed it open a little bit, and then a little bit further. Then I saw some of the hair cast and said could I take a photograph please? He says yeah course! Please I need some photographs for my playbill of hair. From sort of that moment onwards I've always tried to push doors that are half-ajar open Because you never ever, ever know what's on the other side. And I think that's the most important lesson in life i had is always always pushing that door that is half open and there are extraordinary things on the other side. Having a willingness to explore or a willingness to ask questions? I think it's a willingness to trust yourself

10:26 I mean i've got about forty thousand miles of hitchhiking all over the world and that really started in the states when i started hitchhiking during the spring break. What is so rarely in hitchhiking you gotta sign saying trust me, i am trustworthy because it's a two way trust and i think that is something we forgot And I've done, as they say 30-40 thousand miles of hitchhiking. I've never ever had a bad experience and i think the most important thing in life is to realize most experiences are going to be good it's having that trust in yourself how do you provide that trust in yourself and that's really been my sort of quest what I've been working on during my life is to try to understand what freedom of choice gives me

11:20 Because I believe we really are, and i certainly am the first generation to have the freedom of choice to shape my own destiny. My father grandfather great-grandfather the only thing they could do in life was to join the British Army it was their duty it was their manifest destiny and I had that freedom And I think that's for all of us what is a huge challenge in life is what do we have to learn about ourselves, mother nature human nature and our own potential if we want to enjoy that freedom of choice. Wow! As a 46 year old man it's very easy to lose sight of those...of that very recent history you know and so you sit here you've just so eloquently put it we have these choices so many choices

12:20 Many people in the world today will be talking about how they feel restricted or it's not fair and I don't know, blimey. Ranging from loneliness to depression to money troubles and actually just in the space of a hundred years what you've pointed out is We've gone from no choice to maybe it's too much choice. Yeah, I'm not quite a hundred yet but i totally agree with you. My father had absolutely no choice! He used to salute his toothpaste mug with King George on it when he was nine years old that was his duty every morning before he cleaned his teeth. He was serving the king

13:05 And though that gave you no freedom, it gave you identity. I think this is the whole thing of freedom of choice is frightening because it comes with responsibility and therefore what is that responsibility? But what is your community And until you can define your community, where can you belong and be recognised? Which is obviously what I've been learning from indigenous communities around the world. Which is how do you define your identity by knowing where you fit into their territory? And... Do you think that's... You see it in indigenous tribes but also more traditionally in our culture people had those defined roles butcher baker candlestick maker does

13:53 Whilst that doesn't give you as many choices, does it make life easier? It's less stressful perhaps. Yeah I mean you know i'm still reasonably convinced that there is only about 5% of people that really want to do something and hustle life. Yep! I mean I really do life is definitely freedom of choice just self-select yourself to what you're going to do in life I think so many people just a quite happy to have excuses to be a victim. I mean, you know talking about the COVID thing i don't know if you listen to people talking webinars right at the beginning six or eight months ago oh first you get angry then you get depressed then you get this and that

14:37 Yeah, I just had to stop people in their tracks and say look i spent a lot of time in Mongolia and East Africa. And in Mongolia there's this particular expression...I can't repeat it what it is in Mongolian but basically the translation is shit happens get on with it! I think we've got to address it. Yes, obviously it's affecting me in many different ways but now stability security certainty structure all of this status and arrogance they no longer work so people are no longer really that impressed by your BMW or the Ogok director on your name card and I think this is a glorious time

15:24 For people to have to work out who they are, what is their importance? What are their priorities? What do they try and do with their lives. And I think that is part of it, looking at what your family is, what are your values, what are our blessings. Yeah so thats a good question! So where do people Maybe you know this from your own experience or maybe you've seen it done in different ways. Where do people go to start? They're going to start to identify themselves, where do they start with that? Well I mean i'll do a methodology called territory mapping where you get people who sort of draw their territory and this sort of really originated because I went on a camel safari in northern Kenya and each evening the Maasai would sort of wander into our little community but what I saw is they had absolute presence

16:14 They had substance without arrogance. And what I realized my entire education was how could you be massively arrogant with minimum substance? My school also perfected effortless insincerity, and those in my opinion the only two things that it actually perfected. So i went on this camel safari and became fascinated what do these people have that we don't And that's when I then went off to Papua New Guinea. I met the ambassador in Tokyo, he said why don't you go to my village? So i went off to his village in the highlands of new guinea when they were still running around with feathers headdresses and you know 1980 right right The Highlands of Papua New Guinea and I saw them wearing feathers! I said so why do you have so many feathers? They said well a big man has many feathers but a bigger man can hand out his feathers and I started to see that was leadership

17:10 But there were so many people in Tokyo I'd spoken to where i was living at the time who thought that power was leadership. If I keep all the power, I will be more successful but an indigenous community is handing out your feathers that is true power the ability to contribute to your community and then I asked about spear why do you have a spear? They said, well you have to earn it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it, you can't give it away. You have to earn that spear and the whole idea is leadership is earned and I'm not sure whether you saw this morning about a hero in Afghanistan who's going to sell his medal

17:57 And the troops that he was with in Afghanistan don't mind that he got the medal, even though they're not quite sure he deserved it. But the idea that he will sell the medal for profit is so disgusting and I think this is the same thing of trying to sell your spear. Have you really earned it? So when I go back to Tokyo became fascinated by feathers spears and the shield you have who will protect you how do you protect yourself and that all comes from contribution When I asked the ambassador in Tokyo what's the most important thing in his life, thinking he'd say it is family and community. He said no, it is my territory and he drew a map showing where his village was. And he said from the age of three I was taught to protect my territory and therefore I know my duty and I know my aims and ambitions. What I've discovered inside everybody there is a map and once you start drawing a map of your territory

19:00 You start to get clarity and more importantly when you start drawing the line you start to see your leadership journey. You start to see where people started to follow you and why, and you can start to articulate what is important because once I have seen someone's map you can't unsee it And that's why so few conversations today have any context, because nobody really knows what they're talking about. Because there are words that are unconnected if that makes sense

19:44 Yeah is that like they're not really present to what's going on around and everything. We are not really present but they just don't know because as I say for the first 99.9% of human existence every conversation we've had would have had relevance today were getting hunting crocodiles, ah there is too much weather rain we can't cross the river so we understand the problem with trying to solve But everything today is nebulous. We've got, you know the coronavirus crisis what does that mean to you? And everybody's perception of how they see it is different Is it a real enemy what is it so that's why its difficult for words and conversations because there is nothing embedding what we're talking about

20:29 I mean that's why soccer and all these other things are so interesting. Ah, the goal! We know the ball got in the net right? That is a result and i think that's why sport is so interesting because there is an actual result and we have a context of conversation. Got it yeah. That's what i think we've really lost in our own lives What does it mean to be a successful father? What does it mean to be successful in life And I've got a whole program, I'm working with schools in Dubai and elsewhere. But is your leadership journey to a successful life? Define what a successful life is!

21:09 And how do we articulate the success is having your family contributing, feeling valued. And I think we have to redefine success at the moment and i think we have a fantastic opportunity to do it but i think that comes back to knowing your territory knowing your community and where you contribute So it's a foundational work inside of you. I think it is, but its just simple what is your territory because that gives you hope and belief? What is the river im going to cross next month where do i have to get to? You can start to articulate what you have to achieve

21:46 So by territory do you mean like literally your location or where all your people are? Well to an indigenous person they will draw their sort of, um, their territory. I wear their hunting and what's going on but what i've discovered inside everybody they can draw a map showing rivers deserts mountains and swamps it is so deep in our psyche That you just give someone a blank sheet of paper. What is your territory? Where do you see the hope, the journey? What are the waterfalls? I mean i can show many examples of this if people would be interested in it and let them try it. Well now I'm going to let them try it! It may be difficult to show now but at some point I'd love to show you that maps and how that works if people are interested

22:38 We'll put in the notes for this, if you're listening to this on the podcast I'll put all the notes and links to Anthony's work. I'll also in these, in the Facebook or YouTube conversation. I will post some links what we do now is our post Anthony's website link in the chat. Yeah it's not just as a sort of friendly chat I just love to talk to people please give them my email let's have a talk I mean you know this COVID thing has provided masses of opportunities

23:15 But I just think one thing, talking about you and thinking about sort of being a father and everything else. Obviously, I've got kids who are in their 30s and also in their late 20s or mid-20s but when I was educating them my father just said how should I educate my children? He simply said make sure they play sports at which they can get seriously hurt. Yes good! And that was his only real advice. I know that might sound strange, but I really didn't focus on their academics. I just wanted to know how well they played rugby? Did they do it with Verve? Because the future is about having that ability to adapt

24:08 Really to be clear of where you are, where you're trying to go. Then you've gotta be bold when you wonder and that is really freedom because freedom I believe is simply a state of mind. Well, I mean that's deeper than what i did last week but very very true. You know I made a video last week about doing dangerous things with your kids and it was fireworks night and my boy is 11 yeah so he wants to burn and if you leave a lighter around next thing I can smell something burning you know? So

24:52 It's bonfire night, it's firework night. We're on lockdown anyway so I just had a few family-sized fireworks for our backyard but i let them light the firework which some might think is ridiculous but they're gonna do it behind my back with no guidance And even more so if the thought is, oh this is something I'm not allowed to do. This is something I'm not old enough for yet they're going to be more motivated to do it If I don't let them than if I actually Engage in that thought they're having and say right here's the fireworks we can do this safely now. And, and they bloody enjoyed it and it was a little bit hair raising at times but I totally agree with you and believe that we should do dangerous things with our kids. I think we've got to I mean my children have been staying with me in mud hut since the age of eight

25:45 I spend a lot of time with indigenous people and they used to come on my research trips. So we literally sleep in mud huts, go out get 30 feet from 40 feet from elephants wandering around but the main thing was also i think if i mentioned but when my children get 16, i send them to live with the Maasai. I send them to Africa with a mate for about six weeks when they do white water rafting they stay with the Maasai But most importantly, well that's for a week when they really do wander out and they get fairly close to elephants and generally have a good life. They also got the stories of the girls you know when I drank the blood when i killed the goat now this might sound barbaric but this is what children have been doing since time began yeah so i think we have to encourage our children to be brave to recognize courage

26:40 Watching kids on skateboards, god how do they do it? I mean i've got nothing but admiration for them. Yeah! Well I think we gotta start admiring our kids when they show courage because that's what they're gonna need going forward yes math is important but courage I believe is what we're gonna need especially now and to have your own dynamic direction of where you are going Yeah, it's actually in schools now the opposite is all too common because they're so academically driven on the one hand but they're also so terrified of something bad in inverted commas happening to children. You know my daughter has wanted to make YouTube videos since she was four years old

27:25 And and she kind of does but the school got so up in her head about it's dangerous to be online that she now caught between this weird feeling of I can see lots of other kids making these things on YouTube when i want to do it, but my school telling me its bad too. Yeah. And I happen to say to them, it's only bad if you do it in a... It's only risky if you do it in a stupid way! Correct and that's what they got to try the 1% of idiots. You know how I was talking about my kids about drugs? I said for God sake nothing whatsoever against you taking drugs thats fine

28:00 Please go and do it. I haven't done much, but the only thing is problem is if you get caught you get a prison record! If you get a criminal record your life can be cut certain countries you can't go to etc so don't do it not because it's bad for us fine I drink how can I drinking alcohol say they take drugs I mean, you know etc. So how on earth can we try to get the kids to do something because we tell them they shouldn't do it? The only thing you can tell them is if you do it you're going to break the law and that's probably not a sensible thing for your life! Well like in my stepson when he was 16-17 he was asking me questions about smoking weed about cannabis and he was asking me in a way like what do you think and do you know... And I said look

28:52 Pretty much any friend of mine you've met, including myself has smoked weed and probably more than the sensible. And I said to him, I'm not going to tell you it's good or bad. In fact, I'm going to tell you straight up...I've had some of the funniest times in my life smoking weed and taking drugs with my friends. This is what your friends won't tell you when your friends are passing it to you and encouraging it to do they won't tell you what to do if you've had too much or what to do if you feel sick so given that you're asking me this I'm gonna tell you all that stuff now yeah oh I know that if he does

29:30 You know, go to a party. He's gonna in his mind is going to be better equipped to know what to do and best of all if something does Go a bit wrong if he's not feeling very well. He's got the confidence to call me. Yeah Which is all I ever want to know, if one of my kids needs me i'll be there. Yeah probably he's also got the trust that something goes wrong for a mate of his you will also go and help them out because their parents might not and they'd be too terrified so no I absolutely agree with that. No kid did do something because their parent told them not to. Yeah, of course they will! Dad said I'm not supposed to do this...I probably should be. But i think the thing that the kids really really really hate is hypocrisy yeah yeah I really do and I mean you know in Kenya this is why I spent a lot time with the Maasai and the nomads from the age of three

30:21 They get you got three goats to look after for three meters for three hours i mean it's a have time except so they know from an early age what their responsible for what they have authority over and who that accountable all through their life then they become a warrior. Or, you know. So therefore they then know their responsibility is look after the goats to be brave and again it's all around respect, responsibility courage and then they move on from the spear to becoming a junior elder And at that point they get told, you no longer need the spear. We know that you are brave and I always remember one seeing a scar on a Mars eyes face as it why do you have a scar? He said, ah shows i am a gentle man because it shows I can withstand pain so I never have to be aggressive because people know I am brave and this whole idea of known for courage

31:25 And that seems to be what is so important. And then you move though, and I've been to the ceremony when they moved from being a warrior to being an elder it is four days of them being told their responsibility authority and accountability has changed That is the journey to leadership The leadership journey Remains a journey, but the most important thing is how on that journey your responsibility authority and accountability changes.

32:04 And that's what I've tried to do with my children is to look at this leadership journey. When you leave school, when you leave university, when you get a new job, you always have the same mountains of self-doubt, of resilience or resistance. You also have the swamps you have to get out of it is a circular journey that you keep coming back to. And the most important thing is how you adapt and how your responsibility, your authority and your approach to life changes and have people seeing you reacting to it. And as a community now you've seen these communities operate those stages of line

32:53 Are people more comfortable, more confident in those stages of life? They're more settled in those stages of life. Yeah and I think this is where there's a look everything there was a yin and yang okay so you know yes they've got the respect the responsibility and the values but yes again it's restrictive It's a bit like The English Society or The System I mean you split civilization exist by splitting power wealth and status i'm always chasing the third one, yeah my father's in the british army india tiny bit of status zero well tiny bit of power remember what speaking to one of the children of the emperor in japan.

33:43 Right. And he went off to America, etc and been to Canada and I said gosh when you come back i mean do you sort of must be amazing being a no they confiscate my passport when i get back to immigration so could you imagine being living god with no power So, you know this is the thing I think and this is why we need to look at which I like about the indigenous people. They have the power of their own personality they have the wealth for their life experience and they had the status that they can contribute but if we know that we are growing as an individual we can contribute to a community that I think gives us peace of mind identity

34:31 Growing as an individual and contributing to our community. And practically, living in England or wherever people are listening to this around the world we've got a lot of listeners in America as well as the UK Can that be as practical as volunteering in your community? I think basically what you're doing is phenomenal! You're creating a community of people to give them hope They're all crossing their rivers looking at the mountains looking at the children guiding them with it you playing an incredibly important role in the community of giving people hope and i think what you have done how u done it for yourself and others.

35:20 That is what I think people need to think about. The community isn't necessarily volunteering, it's where you're going to be respected and how you're going to be respected from what you do which is how you behave and how you treat people that's what I've loved about our conversation You have created an extraordinary avenue to give people hope What more can be more valuable for you or for the community? Yeah well thank-you for saying that I really appreciate that But it's true. I mean, in our culture we don't often get acknowledgements very often and conversely people aren't necessarily that good at taking acknowledgments to actually listen what's being said and accept it so I genuinely am grateful to hear that word thank you but you're playing the role of an elder You know what your responsible for which is for your community So you've got the authority

36:18 You show respect for everybody respects each other. Everybody who joins has got to have courage so they know what they're responsible for, you've got the respect and responsibility and the courage that's peace of mind isn't it? Yeah totally Wow, as you're saying that I'm really thinking about how we can parent respect responsibility and courage. Putting that into our kids or giving our children space for that to be something they take on board. Courage we talked about doing dangerous things something that's important also courage in speaking up

36:59 Oh God yes, public speaking. That's the number one thing people are terrified of if some get people talking I mean i got wonderful interviews with Joseph Nombre from Papua New Guinea the ambassador and he remembers first contact But his rule in life is a leader has to be able to have oratory skills. Sorry, one second Anty just to be clear you're talking about first contact that's the day their tribe made first contact? First contact in about 1948 on the highlands of Papua New Guinea and he remembers it! No I mean I'm getting goosebumps you saying that but people become so disconnected to history and we're talking what 40 years ago so 80 years ago which

37:41 One lifetime really. These people had no contact with the outside world and you're meeting someone who's there and experienced that, so sorry. Yeah he is the one who taught me about territory! Right okay You know this is the ambassador from Papua New Guinea left as a small boy only how he rose through the ranks was amazing but that's why his words I find such wisdom because they are not clouded Buy our western what is right or wrong it is just what is right to be a dignified human being and that I've discovered the same in mongolia and east africa or in Papua New Guinea. It's that ability to contribute, that is what we seem to have lost but he talked about the most important thing for leadership is the ability to have all three skills

38:33 So I think yes, i agree getting children to step up to speak to articulate their hopes and dreams that is the ultimate beginning of leadership. That's what im trying to do on these programs running with Dubai to give the children mental resilience, the mental machinery Have a successful life to define the life skills i need and realize most or ninety nine percent of that is below the line it's not there math school it is who they are and that's what i think we have to recognize yeah also in africa they always say the small boys the first spot the hyena

39:18 IE we've got to listen to the children talking about the most important things and maybe saying things that we haven't as adults and how we can work with them especially now with all of these challenges everybody faces. The wisdom of indigenous tribes is being lost. It's being totally and utterly lost, I mean it just sort of the normal enslavement they want to enslave everybody i mean we're all enslaved because you know our trusts in ourselves and others are deliberately diminished by the system so yes i mean nomads always terrify governments because they can't be taxed but also it's a state of mind

40:06 Yes we're losing it. I mean if you think the Chinese built 20,000 miles of walls over about 3,000 years to keep the Mongolians out because the Chinese believe that more you own, the more important you are and the more cluttered your life can be whereas a nomad, the less you have the more you are Cause they've got that freedom, that ability to move and ability to adapt. And I think that's what we need to realize. Freedom is the ability to adapt and therefore yes all the wisdom is being lost. That's why enjoy talking to them so much it will be gone we will all be enslaved.

40:54 Sorry this is deep stuff. It's making me think about indigenous, Australian indigenous New Zealand obviously the American Indians across North America and Canada I mean i'm wonder what the world would look like if more of those Tribal lessons, rites of passage. The history there I wonder what the world would look like if that had been not just treasured but actually incorporated into modern life? Yeah it's rather intimidating for most people to actually have to realize A they might have to listen to someone you know who doesn't own as much as them and has got wisdom and insights

41:41 So I entirely agree with you that it is intimidating and it's taken me 40 years since I first went to Papua New Guinea, and I started to see the feathers, the spears, the shields knowing your territory. It has taken forty years to start to build this bridge of relevance to people And finally people, in 1988 I wrote up. I will set up an organization that is going to unlock trust and willpower in people. That was based on my journeys and expeditions. Trust and willpower back in 1988 everybody went yeah great idea! Finally 33 years later people are saying wow trust is important I've just read it in a Harvard Business Review

42:32 It's been with us since time began. If you don't trust yourself, others and the laws of mother nature in our environment how can we be fulfilled? How is that possible I don't believe it is because we've lost the value of trust. In ourselves or in others or in all of it? I think in all of it! Our entire education system is not about giving people trust its about making them feel inadequate and insecure Yeah, it really is. I mean this is why I always admire the idea of a butcher or baker they can actually do something and make something

43:14 You know, nothing we can do. We're not educated to do anything useful! No not at all I'm screwed if Armageddon comes... Yeah! How do you make a hut? how do you do this? how do you bow an arrow? how do you hunt an animal? We can't do anything and to me it's almost deliberate enslavement It really is whereas again the nomads i remember being up with up in the arctic uh with some Inuit Add some BBC camera man up there making a thing of documentary. I mean it would also how do the cameras work they said they didn't know it was absolutely totally confused anybody would have something that they didn't know how it worked because you don't have something works in that community, yeah i just had to digress again with another story but remember being up in northern kenya

44:18 With the masai out there and i said secure take me to leader who's your lead around here they look to me in disbelief they said what is the problem that you're trying to solve because we have many leaders tell us what the problem is. We will find the most appropriate person to come up with a solution I think if you think about everybody looks to their father for the answer or they look to themselves for the answer. No, that's not the best answer often it is knowing who you can talk to who will provide you with the best answer. Yeah when your approaching sounds like you've explored the world right? Am i right in picturing you walking up

45:10 Massai tribe, you know all these innits. You don't know them you've not seen them before you're just Anthony and your approaching them. I'm here hello welcome! Can i come and sit down with you? What's that feeling like? You've travelled, you've walked... Yeah! Hop out of the car. Been on a camel turned up in their huts in Mongolia. The gurs are open and you can go in and help yourself. Oh yeah I always turn up. Hello I'm here. And you know in the tribal lands that's a natural way anybody you see is welcome

45:48 It's just, you know. Any intrepidation there? Are you excited about what's going to happen next or both? No! I've always always just walked in hello i'm here you know it's fine i've never had a problem yeah I mean that's in Kenya, Papua New Guinea. Yes in Papua New Guinea that is still pretty wild etc and someone said please come to my village and I said yeah I need to meet your leader first! I need to meet your chief because you really want to be careful on that and I remember again in Papua New Guinea when we walked across it from the fly to see pick rivers about 180 kilometers uh we had some carriers who were carrying our stuff and we got to a small stream

46:29 I would not cross that stream because they knew they get eaten on the other side. I did a list of concepts of territory but yeah i've never felt under any sort of real problems it's just getting out there and still am you know i'm seventy i'm so falling off wild camels couple years ago i did that when i was coming as also joining nomads on their migration through the mountains And again, that was fabulous being with a family. 500 head of livestock minus 30 they've got to move their herd 120 kilometers but just being with a group of people we know what we're doing We know why we're doing it. We know how we are doing it and we have the courage and confidence to adapt to it That was just a glorious sense of focus

47:23 They were absolutely clear, they were bold and they had that sense of freedom of knowing what they were doing and their purpose. And it was a wonderful experience. And so positive I imagine for the younger generation there are like whether it's teenagers or stuff Yeah, it is a responsibility. There's teenage boys and girls and they're following their parents... They're all part of it, following in their footsteps how much longer they will do that for you know one doesn't know I'm again it's you know this is what's being lost but again it's not for you or me to say hey then we want to move out of their mud hut all that girl something like that i mean jesus christ tell you i mean if you spend four nights in a mine hot in kenya u r exhausted. No water no nothing you know they got carry the water and you think well

48:21 Yeah, I understand they want a better life than that. And that is obviously their own dichotomy and Emmanuel Mankura my Maasai friend speaks about it at length of how do you deal with adaptation? You know how do you adapt to the current environment while maintaining your values? And i think that's a question for us is how do we create our values while adapting to the environment we find ourselves in and do we have to redefine them as our territory becomes disrupted yeah And that level of consciousness is a very practical exercise. I mean, inside of Team Super Dad, I've got a values exercise which is draw your own values be clear on your own values. Yeah! Which isn't anything complicated or you know ethereal woo-woo out there it's just get clear on what you stand for and what feels right to you so that you can relate to other people, you can connect with like minded people, you can know what doesn't work for you, what does work

49:21 It is really, really clear and simple. That's why I love talking to indigenous people because they know it there's no bullshit about it. Someone sent me could I join some panel? And literally was about 15 words of absolute gibberish I mean it really was, it was psychological environmental something-something which is to do with education. And I wrote back saying look up really sorry this total bullshit and jargon you know we've got to start calling it! We've gotta stop... You know everybody wants you to be a victim or when were you a victim in your life? Oh it must be your mother's fault God have been a victim often but its always of my own stupidity

50:09 Yeah, I think we've got to start stopping letting other people play with our minds. We've gotta start enjoying our own selves. Yep totally taking responsibility at the end of the day. Yeah it's simply and enjoying life yeah enjoy being alive we have freedom! Well that's the essence of your Cock Up Club right? That is to celebrate the cock ups, to celebrate... Yeah it is. I mean I can tell you why I set it up when I came back from Japan about 20 years ago and sort of came back trying to settle in England and I'd meet people talk about exactly what we've been talking about they say yeah it's really interesting here's my card when can we meet for lunch

50:54 Sorry about next day fantastic meeting you when can we meet for lunch and it happened twice over 10 days. Someone said to me two people said you know, you are the most boring little man I've ever come across possibly be interested in your ideas about what you could learn from Africans i mean very successful i got my own company really i thought you realize when i said let's talk meat for lunch but you knew that was anyway terminate the conversation So I mean that really happens. I was with a mate of mine, and i thought Christ! I'm speaking English to people you know? I can't understand them and this is the whole thing in life we don't understand each other because there are so many nuances so then said what do we have to do to find people who think like us so that's when we set up The Cock Up Club

51:48 And that is literally, I would have cards printed saying I was chairman of the Cock Up Club. So either got Wednesday night's cock up dinner or hey, I don't do cockups! But it's the only way because how do you get people who've got the right attitude? I mean so many people today have wolf spray for sheep. Hello, I'm very successful. You know, but you know when you listen to them at the end of the day they just going. Now is no longer that time for wolf spray for sheep and that's what I think is so exciting now and children to learn that it's not around their academics its around their ability to communicate its ability to contribute to there to their friends to their peers to work on projects

52:42 And that's where I really, really hope the future is. And that's what I'm working on at the moment. Yeah, I love that. I love that and just finally because you just mentioned that right? What can a man do to sort of pull that brave sense out of him, you know what? Like if particularly in the world we live in today. Right. We're all a little bit sort of henpecked by life and the sense of adventure and our own masculinity is a little bit lost or faded now in your experience maybe I know some of the some of the programs you run on stuff like what can the average guy do to tear some

53:25 Just tear some strips of himself to reveal a bit more of that stronger the wolf. Yeah, but I also think the whole idea of strength humility is strength right? I really really passionately believe it good leadership is the humility of authority good leaders have earned their spears I think it would be exceptionally arrogant of me to think that i can give people advice on this, is just some of the things i've done with my own life. But really sort of drawing out my own territory seeing what i appreciate working with others and as you're doing with your group getting fathers together not really introspectively what's right or wrong about themselves but to think of a bridge they can cross together

54:16 Think of a journey they can go on together. That is what I think people can do, it's far more around talking to people about what are we going to do together than trying to do it on your own because I'm useless at doing things on my own whenever I'm feeling negative or whatever I know about three or four people I can ring up hey let's plan this journey lets have a glass of wine lets move and so you got this lovely sort of dynamic movement From where we are and i think it's creating that dynamics and I'd love to talk more about the mapping if that could be helpful for people at some point, and I'll be delighted to do that.

54:58 Well, listen this is we reached the top of our chat. Just do that tell people about The Nomadic Business School of Business and what you do for people? I mean it's really around just getting people to think about their leadership journey in life My program with students now it's really your leadership journey to a successful life Starting to get them to define what does successful life mean. And then I've got people like Nelson Mandela's prison guard, who is an amazing bloke called Christo Brand. Rebecca Stephen has climbed Everest and the Seven Summits – amazing! First British woman to do it. Krishna, who is a Gurkha, joined the Gurkhas invited to join the SAS then went on to climb Everest three times. Those are the people that I want to talk to students about what is a successful life

55:57 The Jonnie Jensen Show, Jonnie Jensen, Anthony Willoughby, Team Super Dad, Trans-Siberian Express, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, Team Super Dad, That's what I want children to hear about. How did they get through it? To give them the hope that they can see their own roots through it, so that's really what I'm working with students on and now developing this info for individuals as well to use in their own lives and then for corporates using the mapping to obtain some clarity of what is important Because it all starts with a map. It all starts of knowing where you are, where you're going and how you're gonna get there and that is what most of us have been robbed with or from that we haven't had that clarity because up until now really it hasn't been necessary because everybody goes into an office everybody's far too busy to actually have to think about anything

56:53 And now is the time to think, and that's why I think finally... To be honest this last eight months has been a massive opportunity. It's been the most exciting time of my life because finally people are realizing you have to trust things and you have to unlock your willpower to see things differently so for me it's been a really really exciting time of opportunity and if anybody would like to talk to me about this please please get in contact Well, I'm sure they will. So that in your email address is anthony at nomadic school of business dot com. That is it! Yeah and this is the beginning of a movement. I mean literally... It's been really exciting talking to you and I can't commend you high enough for what you're doing. Well I appreciate saying that and you know what? It is a journey. It's an adventure. Something you said today, I've just written it down as you just said loads of things but you just said here

57:51 Is a journey we go on together. So whether that's life is a journey, we go on together. Team Super Dad is the journey we go on together our family are you know your childhood is the journey we go on together I think that's just beautiful it's absolutely powerful and beautiful yeah And that is genuinely how I see it and once you can see where it isn't where you see the waterfalls then Then it becomes easier to work on them together because we all face those waterfalls, etc. So what's this just fun again? Swamps, deserts... Oh swamps, deserts mountains and jungles I mean they're all naturally deep deep deep and rivers to cross but once you can start to identify the river or the mountain it becomes so much more dynamic

58:42 I mean, on my screensaver, I have my map of what I'm going to do with my business. We've got across the sort of onto the plateau to where the future is and the future is around trust clarity and agility that's what people in organizations need but how do you guide them into thinking that's what they need? Because most people so far thought the more they can clutter their lives with what they own, the more successful they are and greater the status. And this is somehow got to be flipped because it's no longer... you know? It doesn't work anymore!

59:25 Well, that's the brave new world that is going to come out of this. I know! Let's go and populate it together. Yeah brilliant. Well Anthony we are definitely would love to do some workshops or even discussed it, do some workshops inside Team Super Dad for the Hero Academy group as the next intake coming at the beginning of December. So talk about doing that in 2021 and making that happen? Brilliant. It's been an absolute pleasure, words can't really do it justice really to have had this hour with you today my mind crossed is to another guy I featured on the podcast called John Hall he was the youngest captain of a merchant navy ship

1:00:11 And he shared his stories of traversing the seas of the world, very grew up in India. I'm going to introduce the two of you because he is an absolute classic guy probably very much at the same Ilkin age and now that you two get on like a house on fire... I'd love to talk to him! I really would yeah. Hold tight i'll end this and then we'll say goodbye afterwards Anthony. Pleasure see you soon thank you very much indeed cheers thank you so much thank you everybody Well done, you made it through. You are the hour crew! Just Anthony what a top load I love learning from people of all ages to be fair but when you're talking to an older guy and i mean that with all respect It's just brilliant to hear... yeah if used that word before.. that wisdom

1:01:05 Just the adventures that he's been on, the strength of character and some of the old-fashioned stuff as well. You know there's a lot to be said for good traditional sort of morals and perspectives but also just like the idea that standing on the side of a road hitchhiking across America and sending his boys out to do the same I flippin love that! And so yeah it just resonates totally with my outlook on life And the principles of Team Super Dad and everything we do inside The Hero Academy. So if you've enjoyed that, and you want to know more about everything that we're up to then come on over to teamsuperdad.com forward slash network to join the free group and forward slash teamsuperdad.com forward slash hero academy To make sure...to secure your place to get in on the next intake of The Hero Academy That's it for this show! We'll see you on the wrap-up

1:01:59 More madness, banter and laughter definitely with Glenn this week. And maybe a couple of extra guests we shall see as Friday rolls around! Thanks for being here guys Team Super Dad out bye This has been Team Super Dad Find us at teamsuperdad.com