The Seamus Fox Podcast.
This podcast has been created to share real life experiences from inspiring people in all walks of life, those who have engineered change in their own lives through a shift in thinking and beliefs. I want to share my own journey and have others share theirs so that it can help inspire others to crete the internal changes thats needed to create long lasting life changes.
The Seamus Fox Podcast.
Unlocking High Performance with Seamus Fox: From Fitness Trainer to Mindset Coach for CEOs
Unlock the secrets to high performance with our guest, Seamus Fox, a mindset coach for CEOs and high achievers. Seamus takes us through his fascinating evolution from starting as a personal trainer in 2007-2008 to transforming into a business coach focused on psychological and behavioral drivers of success. Discover how Seamus turned his deep passion for health and fitness into a robust business model with multiple locations and a franchise, and later found his calling in mentoring other personal trainers and business owners.
Ever wondered how past experiences shape your present-day emotional triggers? Seamus sheds light on this intricate relationship and guides us on a journey to uncover hidden motives that might be holding us back. We delve into the significance of understanding and realigning one’s true values, exploring how perceived voids in our lives can drive our motivations and actions. Learn practical strategies to set realistic goals and optimize both mental and physical performance, drawing from Seamus’s vast experience and insights.
Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on contemporary societal shifts, including changing attitudes towards alcohol consumption and the benefits of sobriety. Seamus shares his compelling personal journey towards a sober lifestyle and its transformative impact on productivity and confidence. From managing challenging relationships to fostering a harmonious workplace, this episode is a treasure trove of actionable advice for anyone looking to enhance their well-being and achieve their true potential. Don't miss out on this engaging and transformative conversation!
Great, all right, perfect. So I believe we're live now. And yeah, we are live. This is the Cashmium Connections live podcast. I'm John Caprani. My guest today is Mr Seamus Fox, right here. Seamus, good evening. Thank you for showing up live. Takes a bit of ball to do that. Not everyone is prepared to show up live on a call.
Speaker 2:I prefer it live. Man See what happens. Thanks for having me, john and see what happens.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, john, welcome. Thank you so, seamus, um, you are a coach who works on mental performance with business leaders. Um, as far as I can tell about you or read about you, you're trained by dr john d martini, your multiple award winner, tedx speaker, and work with national international organizations in ireland and around the world.
Speaker 2:Fair summary that's a fair enough summary. I suppose I was. I would say that um a mindset coach to ceos and high performers, essentially helping them perform better in their lives and helping them perform better in their business and increasing personal performance, which helps them show up better in their business and also then, as a byproduct of that, increases business performance.
Speaker 1:Okay, but from what I know about you, you're not a guy who started out in a corporate business environment.
Speaker 2:Definitely not. And I wouldn't say even still that I'm in a corporate business environment fully. I work with a lot of people who are in that um sector, for sure. But uh, I wouldn't say no, definitely didn't start out in the corporate world, that's for sure how did you get just get your start in this world in coaching and performance?
Speaker 1:where did it come from your interest in this?
Speaker 2:stuff. Um, I started coaching john probably around 2007 2008. I started out as a personal trainer. Um, started as the usual solo personal trainer and my one-to-one personal training business kind of quickly grew and evolved and from there that then branched out into at the time it was like boot camps. The boot camp business really began to expand and grow and I had like multiple different locations all around the north and done it all satellite businesses that I had kind of going 2016 that kind of evolved into like a franchise model for a short period of time.
Speaker 2:Um, but I suppose my interest in coaching came from a bodybuilding background. Um, I've always loved health and fitness. I've always loved training. From the young age of seven I was always involved in sport football, bit of boxing just always loved, loved training. Um, I got away from training for a while, kind of hit the party scene, like a lot of us do, but but it got me back. Different events that happened in my life got me realigned again with health and Fitness, became a bodybuilder. 2005 I won a local bodybuilding competition and then that gave me the platform to start personal training really and then everything kind of really evolved from from that point do you remember the first time somebody said actually I'd like you to help me with my business, and not just my fitness?
Speaker 2:the business. Part of it probably came back probably around 2018, 2018, 2019, when personal trainers started asking me to help them with their business, to help them with the growth of their business. They look at marketing, they look at sales, they help them with their business model. That kind of started me then coaching other coaches and gym owners and personal trainers and work with business owners. Now, as a personal trainer, I've always coached business owners. I've coached a lot of business owners in their health and their fitness.
Speaker 1:So there's always been a thread there of me working with business owners, even from the early days of personal training and when business owners would come to you in your fitness days, did you notice there were certain like topics, certain themes that kept coming up and up again, that were maybe not necessarily directly part of their fitness, but were you know, they wanted to share with you what, what did you to hear about?
Speaker 2:if I think back to those days, john, as a personal trainer and fitness first just kind of starting out, um, they were coming to me mainly because they wanted to be further healthier, they wanted to lose some weight. But if I think back to the conversations and things that we had, a lot of the times there's a thread there for sure. No, it's stressed out and it's long hours and it's working a lot of the times doing something that they maybe don't feel really inspired by or that they've kind of lost their way, and a lot of the times there's even escapism behaviors that were coming to the fore at that time. Um, so if I think back to like the conversations, I can see a thread even in the conversations from you know what to do right now and who your coach right now, right back to the very early days when I was personal training. For sure, do you?
Speaker 1:did you always kind of see the mental performance side of fitness as being very important? That's a key part of what you needed to do to actually to do well in sport I think so.
Speaker 2:Um, now, if I'm being totally honest, at the very start it probably wasn't something that I really was conscious of or connected. I think for me, just being involved in sport and involved in health and fitness, I've always kind of had that mentality, and when I got involved in bodybuilding, for sure it was a kind of more balls-to-the-wall mentality. You had to have that type of mindset. But I suppose, going right back to those days, what I became aware of was I started to become more aware of like psychology, started reading more books in psychology and mindset and the whole way through my career as a personal trainer, the things that I was always really most interested in in terms of the books and things that I studied was more around behavior, was more around mindset. Obviously, nutrition and all those things played a part, but I was always more interested in, like the motivations and the things that were going on kind of underneath the hood that really helped people shift and change.
Speaker 1:When you are assessing somebody who is in a situation where they want to work on their fitness, where do you see the priority has to be first? Do you have to get the body working right first before you can focus on the mind, or do you always start from the mind?
Speaker 2:I think, more so now as a coach and a mentor. What I do now is, I think, from if I look back, as a personal trainer, as a gym owner, I would have been very much like you have to do this and you must do this, and it was very much. This is what you should be doing. Understand human behavior a lot deeper and a lot more now.
Speaker 2:I don't ever inject my values on the other people. I try to get them aligned with theirs, and every single person loves by a unique set of priorities and a unique set of values, and their life demonstrates it, and health and fitness might not be high in their values, it might not be something that's really, really important for them, but their family might be, their business might be, social life might be. So if I'm working with people who know that they maybe want to be fitter, stronger and healthier, but they're not actually implementing it, then I need to be able to link that health and fitness goal to something that's more important for them. I need to be able to link that to their family. I need to be able to link that to their family. I need to be able to link that to their business. What's the benefits of you being fitter, stronger and healthier. How does that benefit your business, how does that benefit your family? And once we start to get the links and we start to get the deeper meaning, the behavior begins to change I like that.
Speaker 1:That's a very, very nice answer. So at what point did you decide? Okay, I'm actually going to make mental performance and business performance my core focus, what I really help people with.
Speaker 2:I've been doing it the last few years, probably back since, I'd say more so around 2019, 2020. And I created a mindset academy. I started working with people specifically around their mindset and then I started studying under Dr John Demartini and started taking things up a bit deeper and really beginning to further my own knowledge and understand the behavior more. And when I went and did fully, I suppose, was essentially like this year when I sold the gym in the fitness business and I've kind of went full. I've invested myself fully in what I'm doing right now. So it's always been there and I've always been doing it. But I suppose for me to take the leap and do exactly what I really want to do and fulfill this vision further, something else had to change and for me it was going all in and letting go of the fitness business.
Speaker 1:Okay, nice, from studying, or studying with Dr John Demartini. For people who are not familiar with his work, what is the philosophy that you'd learn from working with him, and how do you implement that in your work with people now?
Speaker 2:John's philosophy is. If anybody's not familiar with him, he has a an event called the breakthrough experience and he's got a fantastic book called the Breakthrough Experience. He's wrote a lot of different books and the Breakthrough Experience is essentially his method. He's developed a method called the Demartini Method and the Demartini Method is essentially a series of columns and questions that gets you to see the other side of what you see as a problem, an issue, something that's popped up so so many times, john, so many times in our business, so many times in our life.
Speaker 2:We have perceptions of certain things and we have stored those perceptions a lot of the times subconsciously, as a negative event, the bad event, let's say. But then, a lot of the times, what happens is maybe two years, three years, five years. Down the line you look back at that event. You see it as a blessing. Well, the biggest part of my coaching and teachings and what I do and I've learned from john is why wait for hindsight when I can actually go and get you to see that blessing right now by shifting your perspective? So, so, as he says. He says why have the wisdom of the ages with the aging process when you can have the wisdom right now, without the aging process, and that's by asking the right questions that get you to dig deeper and see the hidden order in the chaos.
Speaker 1:Can you maybe dig a little more into that? Operationalize that. How would you do that when you're working with the business owners? If they have an experience or something they, can you maybe dig a little more into that? Operationalize that. How would you do that when you're working with the business owner? If they have an experience or something they could see as a huge problem with them?
Speaker 2:how do you help them to actually to reframe it? So there's a lot of different ways, there's a lot of different columns and a lot of different questions. That's involved in his method, but a lot of the times, it's our judgments. Let's say so. As you know and I know, joe we either consciously or unconsciously judge people. A lot of the times, and you'll see this in business, especially in business partnerships and relationships there's a conflict of values. So one person expects another person to be like them and another person expects them to be like them and they don't understand each other's values. But if we understand each other's values, instead of conflict, there's communication and you can move forward. So it's our judgments a lot of the times that cause the chaos.
Speaker 2:So, if you're constantly judging someone, or you're getting, um, irritated by someone, or there's like a trait or something that you're someone else is actually presenting that is triggering you, well, a big part of that, first and foremost, is to find that within yourself, right. Well, where have you displayed that? Where have you actually presented that? Maybe you've actually done it with the exact same person, but you've definitely done it in your life. So it's owning your judgments and it's owning the traits of the things that you despise in other people and seeing it within yourself automatically. What that does is it lessens your judgment and it's only the traits of the things that you despise in other people and seeing it within yourself automatically. What that does is it lessens your judgment and it brings down the emotional charges you have towards somebody else, because what you judge in someone else you also do. Then we look at right, well, how does that actually benefit you? How is that actually serving a purpose? How is that helping you grow? How's it helping your business grow? What's it actually reflecting for you?
Speaker 2:And then it's a lot of the times going in where does he present the opposite? Because if you're judging this person for this and you say that he's always this way, well, that type of language is just false because they're never always that way. So when does he present the opposite? So then we start to soften the judgment again and then you start to see that the things that you've judged on someone else you also have, but the thing that you've judged on someone else is actually serving a benefit. So a lot of the times we expect things to be a certain way, we expect people to be a certain way, and when they aren't that way and they don't meet our expectations, we judge them. So a big part of the method, I suppose is, is taking people through a series of questions. They help dissolve their judgments and they find balance and appreciation for the things that they're judging on other people and seeing how it serves. Essentially now, that's a shortcut fraud, I suppose, john, but it's a process that you take people through.
Speaker 1:So those qualities you talked about, like the qualities that can be problematic, which is being very judgmental of others, and particularly others who are you working closely with, and then the problem of having expectations of people that may not be in line with what they've expressed, of what their priorities are. I can see how those can be problematic in a business environment, but on the other hand, those types of qualities again probably are useful for somebody who's a successful business person. I mean, they almost need to be able to make sharp judgments to be able to move forward quickly and they almost need to have strong expectations to push and motivate others to get things done. So how do they balance that with, then, the other side of being accepting and not getting emotionally dragged into that stuff and still be an effective leader or business person?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I suppose that the big thing. There is. A lot of the times the judgment says it's things from the past. So if you're being triggered by something right now, it's usually because of an experience in the past. It's usually because of something you're fearful of. It's usually because of something that's actually popped up, but it's from an emotion from the past. So most fears are based on an experience from the past that you're projecting into the future or that you're projecting into the present.
Speaker 2:And if you look back at some of those charges and the things that you've had in the past and actually dissolve them and actually look at them different and find out how they benefited, you, find out how it served, then you a lot of the times dissolve that trigger, which doesn't mean that it's never going to pop up again, but your perception of it and your ability to actually deal with it and look at it will be completely different. So it's not to say that you need to like dissolve any of your quality traits that make you decisive and make you the business owner that you need to be, but it's how can you deal with those emotions better? Because it's it's our emotions that a lot of the times like run us ragged and the emotions. A lot of the things that we experience right now are usually based on something we've experienced in the past how do we go about identifying those past sources of the emotions that are not helping us right now?
Speaker 2:well, again, for me it's a series of questions, it's a series of digging that we bit deeper, um, it's a series of kind of seeing what's coming up right now and then, right, well, let's look back like where's the origin of that? Like where did that actually appear? When was the first time that actually happened? How did that actually happen? Um, and it's just bringing the unconscious conscious, which is a big part of just digging that wee bit deeper. So it depends on what the person is looking for now. Again, we don't always necessarily have to go into the past and we don't have to keep moving backwards and going and dig deeper and going into the past in order for us to move forward.
Speaker 2:A lot of the times, with guys that I work for, it's a realignment of their values and understand them what their values actually are, because most people think that values are words. Most people have, especially in businesses. They have this idea that it's hard work and honesty and integrity and these things. And then people show up in their business and they're not honest and they don't act with integrity a lot of the times and they're not always respectful. So there's social idealisms and moral ethics, but your values is what your life actually demonstrates is important to you and there's a series of questions that John again Dr Demartini has developed, which is a determination process. It gets you to really see what your life has demonstrated and it's important for you.
Speaker 2:And once people do that, john, is like a. It's like a penny drop for people because they actually really get to see what's really important for them, because most people subordinate to somebody else's values, society's values, some type of authority, and they have an injection of values from somebody else and that constant thinking that they have to be a certain way creates a lot of internal conflict. But when you get to really understand what's most important for you, you can be authentic. And authenticity is basically understand your values and seeing that you're both side of human being. You've got good and bad, positive and negative, sometimes you're happy, sometimes you're sad, sometimes you're nice, sometimes you're mean. That's essentially who we all are. But the expectation to be one side of human beings would create so much conflict for people and it's ultimately a fantasy you can't actually fulfill this is people's desire that they want to be perfect and they want to be seen as perfect by others well, if you accept that perfection is good and bad, positive, negative, up and down, happy and sad, all of it, then you're perfect.
Speaker 2:But if your expectation of being perfect is this happy, positive, never angry, never shy person, and it's a delusion. Do you know anybody like that, john?
Speaker 1:Who's?
Speaker 2:always happy, never shy, always positive, never negative.
Speaker 1:I've met people who've tried to present that, but it's always visible at the margins that it's not quite all what it appears to be yeah yeah yeah, I've seen it myself.
Speaker 1:I've tried to be that person myself as well, too, and realized that didn't um wasn't something that lasted yeah, I've come to a point where in my life where I know I'm a cheerful and friendly person, but I'm a cranky bastard too, and I'm okay with both parts of myself yeah, and I think that's the secret and that's the real key when you're okay with all sides of yourself, you can just be yourself now, you talked about this and used the phrase making the unconscious.
Speaker 2:Conscious is a kind of key part of this, which is helping people to see the things that they're not seeing, that are going on in their own life, right yeah, because, especially when it comes to business, john and performance and people are looking to succeed and like, go after certain things and then they they don't move forward because they might have an unconscious motive that's stopping them from doing that. So you might say that you're going to get fit, strong and healthy and this year is going to be the year that you actually get six pack abs and you're going to lose all the weight. But unconsciously you're perceiving more benefits than not doing that and there's a motive there that's unconsciously stopping you from actually achieving what it is as you said you wanted. Well, you're never going to do it if you've stacked up doing that and there's a motive there that's unconsciously stopping you from actually achieving what it is as you said you wanted. Well, you're never going to do it if you've stacked up more benefits, subconsciously they're not doing it. Why would you do it? So a lot of the times when we dig that we bit deeper, we can get to some of those unconscious motives and find other benefits and actually doing the thing that you said that you wanted to do, so that you can start to again link that process to the higher values and the things that's more important and get it.
Speaker 2:I'll give you an example. I had a client who I was coaching, um, a couple of years ago. Weight loss client wanted to lose a lot of weight, started to lose a lot of weight and started to really get down, but I got stuck at around 19.4 and we were probably stuck there for a couple months, changing this and changing that. And I said, right, this is the song that's going on in the mind here. So I started the list. I said what's the benefit to stay in at 19 stone four? There is none. I says what's the benefit to stand at 19 stone four? There is none. I says you don't do anything unless you appreciate the benefit. So what's the benefits of standing 19 stone four? So we listed 15 to 20 different benefits of staying at that width within the specific five or ten months.
Speaker 2:I says does that sound like a man that wants to get below 19 stone four when you've already stacked 20 different benefits of staying at 19 stone four? And I said of course it doesn't. This is right, okay, so when was the last time that you were under 19 stone? He said when I was 19. I said okay, what happened at 19? I split up with my son's partner. I says I okay, so you've associated a painful event with being at that weight and that's what was stopping like, no matter what else was going on.
Speaker 2:So we had a link, a process of getting under 19 stone to different things in his life. Well, there was a family dynamic that was trying to. He was trying to keep in balance we had to do that as well too and literally, john within the space of three weeks, he was down below 19 stone. And literally, john was on the space of three weeks, he was down below 19 stone. So he found more benefits in getting below 19 stone and he was able to start moving towards that, but unconsciously, there was a motive there that was keeping him stuck. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:When he and you worked together and you made that connection to that past painful experience with his relationship. Was he surprised by that?
Speaker 2:It was something he wasn't aware of, something he wasn't aware of at all, until we started digging deeper and then he became conscious of it.
Speaker 1:When you make those kinds of connections with people that can be, you can be in very challenging territory there Is it hard for people to accept these truths sometimes.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily because he was a person that genuinely wanted to get below that width, but there was just something else there that he was kind of unconscious of. He had all these different ideas of why he wasn't getting there and different reasons and excuses and things like that of why that wasn't happening.
Speaker 1:But then when we kind of got to the root of why it wasn't happening and we were able to move past that, he was able to give a lot so when you hear people say things like if you don't have it, you just don't want it enough, you know that idea that if oh, you haven't got there, if you haven't done the thing you said you're going to do, or if you haven't achieved the goal you said you're going to achieve, you simply don't want to. What do you think of it when people say these kinds of things?
Speaker 2:I'd say you don't value it enough. Um, it's not part of your hierarchy of values and there's nothing. There's nothing wrong in that. You might value something completely different. Every single person has a unique set of priorities. You might value your family more than growing a business. You might value sitting at home and being with your children more than growing a business. It'll come down to the hierarchy of your values and all of our values are driven by our voids. So whatever voids that we've experienced in the past is what usually drives the values. So if you have a big enough void around growing a business and finances and fat or money, whatever it might be, then that'll drive your value. So what we perceive was missing most is generally what we're trying to fulfill you said values are driven by voids.
Speaker 1:Can you explain what voids are and how and what that means?
Speaker 2:so void is something that you perceive as missing. So whatever you perceive as missing most. So I'll give you an example. Let's say right now in business there's a lack of money coming in and a lack of sales. There's a void there. What are you going to do? You're going to start marketing, you're going to start getting on the calls, you're going to start trying to fill that void, trying to get money in and trying to create sales.
Speaker 2:So we have a multitude of voids, from the day that we're born the whole way through to right now, thousands of them, some small, some bigger, and the biggest void is usually what drives the highest value. So a void is basically something that you're trying to fill and fulfill. So I'll give you an example um, one of the voids that I had as the youngest of a family of seven was I didn't have the same connection. I felt that my older brothers and older siblings and my parents there was a lack of connection. I had a void around connection. Everybody had kind of moved out of the house when I was still a young kid.
Speaker 2:A massive part of what I do and what I value and the businesses that I've built um has been community and connection and my coaching and and how I show up for people. It's connection. It's a massive value of mine. So I built my business around one of my forwards, which was connection. I love that connection. I love the community aspect of it, and there's a multitude of them. So finances was also a thing that was a void growing up. I'm an entrepreneur, I run my own businesses. I like to have a control of my finances, save and invest and do those things. So the thing that I thought was missing actually drove the thing that I've tried to fulfill.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the void is not in itself an absolute negative thing. It's just something that drives you in a particular direction.
Speaker 2:And here's the thing about our perspective. So so many times we can look back and think, oh, woe me, I didn't have X. But the thing that you thought was missing was actually the thing that gave you what you need to become successful. And a lot of the times, if you look back and think, right, well, let's say you had exactly what it is you thought you should have had. What would be the drawbacks? Would you be doing what you're doing right now? Would you be the entrepreneur? Would you be the businessman? Would you be self-sufficient? Would you be resilient? Would you be determined? Would you be disciplined?
Speaker 2:I didn't have all the stuff that my brothers had, right, okay, let's say you got to switch places. Your brother got all the love and all the support and got all the mother cuddling, got everything that he needed spoiled. Where is he now? Still them on my parents, right, okay? Do you want to switch places? A lot of times it's not so. A lot of the times, the voids that we've experienced are the things that we need in order for us to grow you said about triggers.
Speaker 1:What triggers you now are based on the past experience that you project into the present. And when you say triggers, do you mean a situation where strong emotion makes you act before you actually rationally consider what you should be doing in that moment?
Speaker 2:yeah. So something that a trigger for a lot of people is is maybe they see something on social media and maybe they get triggered by somebody doing something. There's a feeling of inadequacy or there's a feeling of not being enough. There's a feeling of not being enough. There's a feeling of I don't have what they have.
Speaker 2:A lot of the times those things will go back to our childhood. They'll go back to an origin at some point where we felt it the first time or we felt it multiple times then since. So a lot of the times when we dissolve those origins and those triggers and we can kind of dissolve the how it started, then it dissolves and softens the, the triggers that we have then as an adult. Are they all going to be dissolved? No, of course not. You're still going to get triggered by other things. But I think the more you warp in yourself and you do, the deeper work and the more that you become conscious, your ability to be able to deal with those things becomes a bit better. You don't be as impulsive and, um, instinctive and just fly off a handle as soon as something happens. You're able to take a wee bit of a step back and you've got more self-control and, um, you can be a wee bit more objective and you're thinking, instead of just being irrational and flying off a handle which we've all done?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely no, there are. There are certain things in certain situations where I can think of, where there's a behavior where I can feel it's triggering me emotionally. You know, with people I work, certain people I work with, and I know in the past I might have just been like, you know, let it rip, but these days I'm like you know. There's another side to this too.
Speaker 1:I don't think there was a bad intention there yeah I'm getting annoyed because there's something about it that's bothering me. There's something inside of me that's causing me to get bothered there, and it's not really about them, and I should probably just take a view, have a couple of breaths and let it pass, because this person has other good things about them that I really appreciate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whenever you point the finger, you get three pointing back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing. Whatever we judge in others, we've also got within ourselves, otherwise you wouldn't know. So a lot of the times is when we get triggered and we judge something on somebody else. It's like, well okay, where have I done that, where have I been that way? Where have I done the exact same thing that I'm judging on somebody else? Or if we get triggered through social media media a lot of times, because we compare a lot of the times what we do, john and I see this time and time again, and something that I've done and I know that you've probably done it as well too is we look up at other people and we perceive that they have more than we we have.
Speaker 2:They've got something different from us, and we put them in a pedestal. And when we put them in a pedestal, we put ourselves in a put and we usually minimize ourselves in comparison to them. We think they've got more money, they've got more, think they've got more money, they've got more wealth, they've got more health, they've got a better body, they've got better relationships, and that creates voids. So whatever we judge or see is missing within ourselves. We create a void and we want to fill it in some way or form.
Speaker 2:But if we look at what it is that we admire in someone else and see what it is that we admire in someone else and go where do I have that? Where do I actually do the same thing? Where do I present the same trait that I admire in someone else, the same action, the same inaction, but I do it in my values, I don't do it in theirs, I do it in the areas that's most important to me. And if I can see that what I actually admire in someone else, I also have them myself, but I present that, my values, then nothing's missing. And you can do the same for your judgments. If you have somebody in a pit and you're judging them and putting them down, it's the exact same thing, right? Well, where do I do the same thing that I'm judging in them? And then you bring them out of the pit and you bring them off a pedestal, and then you're just level. It's just another human being.
Speaker 1:For a person who has something that they believe in their heart, that they really want to do, but they try and they can't seem to make progress. How can they start to actually move in the direction or or remove the roadblock that's in front of them?
Speaker 2:first and foremost, I would ask is it really something that you really want to do? Is it actually really aligned with your highest values? And it is, is it something that you're really willing to pursue? Because if it's not aligned and linked to your highest values, the chances of you achieving it is minimal. And then what happens is you'll blame procrastination and sabotage as things that's wrong with you, but there are actually symptoms that's trying to get you realigned to set goals. That's actually really important, because if you set goals that are really important and aligned with your highest values, you'll be willing to pursue both pain and pleasure and it's for shit. You're going to go after it.
Speaker 2:You know, and I know, john, creating a business, being self-employed, being an entrepreneur it's not easy, it's tough, it's challenging. Trying to grow, get the next level, trying to achieve the things that you want to achieve it's not easy, it's tough, it's challenging, but you keep pursuing it because it's valuable for you. It's important for you. So if people are trying to achieve something, I would. I would get them to make sure that it's actually really something they truly value and that it's really aligned with some, like something that they truly value and it's not a projection of somebody else's values, because if it is the likelihood of you changing, it is probably minimal it's the idea of chasing somebody else's dream right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as Tony Robbins says, success without fulfillment is failure. You know, you get into the goal, climbing the tree and going. Is this it, after all the years and slog and pain and the shit that it takes a lot of the time to get to where you need to be? So fulfillment is is fulfill and fill your mind with what you truly value, something that's most inspiring for you, um, so I would look at what are the goals that you're actually setting that you can't seem to move towards. It might be a value issue. It might be, um, it might be actually having the right type of people around you.
Speaker 2:It might be a marketing and strategy issue 100, it could be those things as well, but I think a lot of times it comes down to, um, more of a mindset and a psychological issue and getting realigned with setting really truly meaningful goals. And then I think a big thing as well, too, john, is is time frames, is making sure that you're setting proper goals and proper time frames that are achievable and measurable, that you can actually move towards them, because most people set fantasies and they set these big, big goals and too short a time frame and then they beat themselves up. But if you just lengthen that time frame, I think, well, I'm going to do it, whether it's five years, 10 years, 15 years. If it's something that you actually really want to achieve and fulfill and you love going through the process every single day of going there anyway, then does it matter when it is?
Speaker 1:If you're in that place and you're starting to look and think, okay, I'm not actually making progress towards this, it can lead to a place where you might be confused and say I don't actually. Maybe I'm not so sure what my values are. You know, I've written my value statement. I've written my mission statement. I have all this inspiring stuff on my walls. I'm reading all these books and yet in the end, if it's not showing up in your life the way you want it to, then maybe you're not clear on your values. How could one start to get clear in that situation?
Speaker 2:Your life demonstrates it, if you actually look closely, your life already demonstrates it. I'll give you an example, and I shared this in a webinar I did for a group earlier today. There was um a girl that I was coaching one time and she said she must, I'm so disorganized. She says, and it's really starting to get me down, I'm completely disorganized and it's it's frustrating me. I says, right, okay, run me through your day. And she says well, I get up in the morning. And she said I get the kids ready for their breakfast, get their school bags packed, she. She says I get the uniforms on, get them washed, dressed, ready to go, get them in the car, then I take them to school. She says then I come home and I get the house and stuff tidied. I get the house done, get stuff ready for dinner. Then I go back. I left them from school, bring them home, get the homeworks done. She says get all that stuff done, get the homeworks done. She said get all that stuff done, get the dinner ready. Homeworks are done. She says, and then I'm kind of sitting down and they're getting ready for bed and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I said sounds pretty organized to me. And it says who you comparing yourself to and she says what do you mean? I says, well, you're organized in the area that you truly value, which is your family and your kids. You're disorganized in the area that you're comparing yourself to and somebody else's values. You're disorganized in the area that you're comparing yourself to and somebody else's values. So your life demonstrates what's truly important for you. So what I would do is look and see what your life is demonstrating.
Speaker 2:Ask yourself some simple questions. What they keep me personal space, like what I keep around me, because whatever we value, we keep in close proximity. What I keep me personal space. What does that mean? What does that represent? How do I like this band my energy? What they do I get energy from? What do I like to give energy to? What am I inspired by? What has been a long-term goal, vision and mission? What is my internal dialogue? What does that represent? What do I like to bring conversations back to in social settings? There's a list of questions that I take people through that gets them to see what their life has actually demonstrated and what's most important for them. You can get those questions on the Dr Demartini website the value determination process. It's a 13-step question, step-by-step. His question is based on looking at what your life demonstrates, because it'll show you what's most important for you.
Speaker 1:Is it possible for someone to actually change their values if they feel that they must do so to achieve new goals? 100%.
Speaker 2:I do this a lot with clients and it's something that we kind of spoke about at the very start, which is linking. So it's linking lower values to higher values. So, john, let's say that your highest value is your family and let's say, for example, that health and fitness isn't. Well, if I get you to link the benefits of being healthier and fitter to how it benefits your family and you start to list more and more and more benefits, then we start to find more meaning in being fitter and stronger and healthier, because you see how it benefits something that's more important for you, because we only do anything if we perceive the benefit in it. So we need to perceive more benefits and we need to take more, find more meaning and do what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So if I can get you to link enough benefits to being healthy and further, because you can see how it's going to impact your family, then you're going to begin to shift and change your behavior and accordance with that. Now it's a process that you have to go through and it's it's work that you have to done, as much as the thought process. And then there's there's also studies that show that when we actually write these out and we get more and more benefits, how that actually begins to shift and change the brain and helps my limit the brain and forge new connections and pathways. That helps reinforce those behaviors. So it's a process, but it's a really fantastic process if you, if you go through it properly this type of work is sort of foundational of setting yourself up with understanding who you are.
Speaker 1:What do you really want and where do you want? What direction do you want to point yourself? Yeah, and then but then there's the, the area you specialize in, which is the area of, of actual mental performance, or personal performance, as you describe it yeah so is that? Are we doing the same types of things there, or is personal performance more about optimization of your behavior in a daily basis?
Speaker 2:so I would say it's an integration of all of it, john. It's an integration of the mindset work. It's an integration of all of it, john. It's an integration of the mindset work. It's an integration of the values. It's really beginning to dig that way a bit deeper and understand who you are, what's really most important for you, looking at those voids in terms of what actually drives the behavior, and uncovering those, then beginning to match and set goals in alignment with what you actually truly value, so that it's more meaningful for you. And then it's beginning to set a vision and a mission around what those values and those voids are, so that you're congruent in what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Then it's looking at well, what are the fears that pop up that we could dissolve and rebalance? And then what I'll do is I'll look at right, what's your sleep like? I'm tracking your sleep what's your steps like, what's your hydration like, what's your nutrition like, because changing your physiology is going to have a massive impact on your psychology. And if you're not sleeping properly and you can forget about everything else, if everything else that we just talked about out the window, if you're getting 2-3 hours sleep a night and you're waking up every single morning and your head's up your ass, you're just not going to perform. So we address sleep.
Speaker 2:I get every one of my clients to track it. They use WIP, they send me their data, so I look at all those different things as well too. That really has a massive impact on your performance in terms of your brain and how you show up. Um, just feeling better and being more objective and and all of those things then start to play into the the other things, that confidence you know. If you're, if you're feeling better, if you're losing weight, you're showing up better, you're starting to improve your, your strength, you're going to the gym, you're sleeping right, your confidence improves, your energy improves, how you show up in your business improves all those things. The energy is kind of integrated and the everything that we spoke about yeah, of everything it's like.
Speaker 1:This year we discovered. Just you know the value of sleep more than anything else is like when you don't have it, or when it's not rice it just trashes everything. Everything is downstream of a good night's sleep in life. It's ridiculous 100% man.
Speaker 2:I just got back from the states and I had jet lag for a few days and this morning was the first day I got back in the gym and trained and I actually shared a video on this on my instagram this morning. Um, I was sharing how much exercise and the normal routine has an effect on me and when I don't do that, how much those old fears and thoughts and anxieties can resurface again because I'm not looking at me. Well, it's not that I couldn't look after my sleep. I was traveling, so I was jet lagged, so my sleep was out of whack, my normal routine was out of whack and I could feel that.
Speaker 2:Now here's the thing if you've never been at 80 or 90 percent, you don't know what that feels like. You've no comparison. So so many people are running around 40, 50 percent and expecting that and thinking that's just the norm. They don't know what 90 feels like or 100 feels like. They don't know what proper, restorative sleep actually feels like. So that's just the norm a lot of times for a lot of people and when you get them to shift and change that, they feel that it's like fuck right. Okay, now I got something to compare it to um, but for me, like just the last couple of days, not doing the normal thing that I've always done it and being in sleep deprivation, I suppose I could see how that was impacting me. So imagine that you're not doing any of those things ever and that's just your normal way of living and you're not really sleeping properly and you've got sleep deprivation all the time and you're not eating right and stuff. That's just your, your baseline.
Speaker 1:A lot of times just to come back to the topic of, you talked about people and environment and how these also have a large effect on your emotional state, how you show up in your life, how you feel about things and what your behaviours are, and in both these categories of people and environment, the ways in which we can change.
Speaker 1:We can choose to spend more time with some people, choose to spend less time with others, but inevitably and with the environment, we can choose to move to a different place. We can choose to maybe work in a different place, but inevitably, for both of these categories, there are times in life where you know there may be people who we find extremely frustrating or very difficult for us to work with, and yet we still have to work with them. That might be even in a family context. There's people who are very challenging, difficult relationships with them, but there are people who we still deeply care about because they're somebody close blood, relatives or somebody who's been meaningful to us over a long period of time. And I think the same with environment as well. How do you make a determination about when it's time to remove something, or when it's time, or if you can't remove something, how do you manage the relationship with that person or with the environment yeah, um, it's a great question.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of the times and I kind of get sick hearing this toxic quote and toxic label of people toxicness and talk to that and like hold on a minute I think for me, john, going back to what we spoke about before is if we're getting triggered and we feel that there's people that are showing up with certain things in our lives that are constantly annoying us, a lot of the times is it's an unowned part of ourselves, so we actually haven't owned that within ourselves. So, as I said already, calming down the judgment is owning what we're judging and other people and seeing it within ourselves and seeing that we also have that, first and foremost. Then you can actually do a wee bit of work and say, well, what is that person actually teaching me? Where am I maybe being cocky? Where am I maybe being proud? Where am I maybe like putting myself on a pedestal and they're actually coming along to try and bring me back in the equilibrium again and bring me back in the balance and bring me off my pedestal.
Speaker 2:But a lot of the times, if, if we think that everybody should be supporting us and everybody should be positive and everybody should be like helping us grow in a certain way, and then they show up with the opposite. Well, the opposite might be actually the thing that you need in order for you to grow. That's the challenge. So, first and foremost is, take yourself back a wee step and go right, well, what is this person actually presenting? What's that actually teaching me? Where do I actually do the same thing myself?
Speaker 2:What I judge in someone else, I also have them myself and then say, right, well, how can I grow from this? Am I being, am I out of balance? Am I acting cocky? Because when we're cocky, proud and putting ourselves on a pedestal, if we don't learn to govern ourselves, other people will govern us, govern from without. So if we don't bring ourselves off the pedestal, somebody else is going to come along and do it. We see this time and time again. Maybe we get cocky and we put ourselves out there in a certain way. And social media what happens? You get the comments.
Speaker 1:Shame is to be back in just a moment. At least I hope so. I think he'll be right back. I'll have to talk by myself now, because I don't want to cut off before he has a chance to finish what he was saying so with a bit of luck we'll get him right back. Just quickly send him a message here and you're back. Are you sure what happened there? I'm not either. It's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So what I was saying was I suppose, to simplify it is, instead of labeling people as toxic and labeling them as that, look and see what it is that they're actually presenting, owning that thing within yourself, first and foremost, maybe ask some questions, see, like, is this person actually teaching me a lesson? What can I learn here? Maybe I'm at a balance in some way or form and they're actually helping me bring myself back in the equilibrium again, because, as I said already, if we don't learn to govern ourselves from within, we'll be governed from without, and something or somebody will show up. A lot of times. They help bring you back into balance and maybe that's that person now.
Speaker 2:It can also be something that is destructive, and maybe you just need to remove yourself from that environment completely altogether yeah, I was gonna.
Speaker 1:That was kind of. My next question is it, is it there? Is I agree with you about this like it's so easy to throw labels of oh he's toxic, oh she's a narcissist. You know, everyone does all this. We're not getting the full story here, but there are definitely cases where you see, where things like bullying happens, like bullying is a real phenomenon.
Speaker 1:You know, we see it in school with kids and we see it in the workplace with adults as well and I mean, there is, I think, sometimes a case where people would say, okay, I am being bullied here or I am being treated wrongly for some, for no fault of my own yeah, um, I don't disagree at all um 100.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, in certain certain circumstances and in certain environments, it's. It's easier to just remove yourself because you could be going through that process that I've just talked about daily over and over and over again and sometimes it's like right, no, I don't know. I just need to actually shift and change environment, get myself out of that environment and get yourself aligned with people who have similar goals and aspirations and values as yours. That energy, as we know, is just completely different. Being around the right type of people, being around people who have goals and aspirations and dreams and values similar to you, is going to help you move towards those things faster. Like, if you're stuck in a place that has a lot of that energy and you are aspiring to be somebody completely different, then you need to shift and change your energy and get into the right environment yeah, that's that seems very truthful.
Speaker 1:I mean, people often will stay in a situation that they know is bad, that they complain about or are happy with, and they know they don't really want to be there. But it's almost like they get stubborn and think I'll show. I'll show them or I won't let them beat me. But it's like maybe nobody's winning here, maybe the best thing will be just to walk away yeah, 100.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Two people with a sore head at the end every day, as in solving anything yes, exactly so.
Speaker 1:Nowadays in your work you get brought into people's companies and into organizations like government organizations and youth organizations to sort of implement some of these strategies to help them have better relationships in their workplaces. Is that kind of the way it is?
Speaker 2:More so companies and businesses. John yeah, working with the CEOs and working with the business owners and then working with their teams and helping, I suppose the business owners and CEOs understand their teams better and understand their team's individual values, and I think it's such a powerful, powerful tool that most companies and business owners don't really understand when it comes to values, when it comes to real human values and how people perform. And I'll use a quote by my mentor, Dr John Demartini. He says that nobody gets up in the morning to fulfill the business values. They get up in the morning to fulfill their own. And if we can understand, how can I get my team and my employees, how can I understand their intrinsic needs and their values and how can I link that to our mission and our vision and our goals and what we want to achieve so that they find more meaning in actually showing up to work? And it's an important and, I think, a really invaluable piece that's not really understood a lot when it comes to the value and application in businesses.
Speaker 1:Inside a business, people are often afraid. They feel like they have to express certain things or have to speak and act a certain way because there's the authority, there's the kind of pyramid of authority, and they have a certain place in this, and people will maybe have things unexpressed that they want to say, but they're afraid to speak their mind. How do you foster an environment where people start to be able to speak more honestly with each other?
Speaker 2:Well, I think, again, going back to the values piece, if, if a company and a business has um values on the wall that are kind of based around kindness and um honesty and all those things, and a person comes on and doesn't actually feel that way or isn't maybe necessarily feeling in the the most kind mood that day, which is just a normal behavior, then they're not going to be to express themselves and they're going to repress certain things. And whatever is repressed gets expressed elsewhere. And I've seen this with a guy I was coaching a business owner. He was showing up in his work, trying to be this happy, positive, always nice guy and um he had a charge on his business partner and I says, okay, so where do you do the same thing? I don't worry, do the same thing, I don't, as we're gonna be here for a while. Where is the same thing that you're judging? You're judging him and it once he did, he owned it. He actually got really kind of enraged at himself because where he actually did the same thing was to the people that he loved most. So what was being repressed in work was getting taken out back at home.
Speaker 2:So when we don't feel that we can express ourselves properly, we repress certain parts and then it gets expressed elsewhere. And if we can't express ourselves properly by asking questions and giving proper feedback, et cetera in the workplace, then we're never getting the best out of people and we're never getting to grow. As I said already, maximum growth occurs at the border of support and challenge. We need both to grow. But if we think that our staff and employees and people that work for us should always be supporting us and always be encouraging our values and always be positive, then it's it's a futile attempt of actually really growing properly. It's just never going to happen and conflicts going to occur. You need both and I think for most of the businesses that grow properly, it's having that space where people can be open, be vulnerable and give feedback.
Speaker 1:There has to be also, I think, an acceptance that different people have different sets of values and that they're going to have to get along with each other, even if they don't agree on some fundamental things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%, and I think even sometimes when employing people, that's an important thing to look at because, let's say, you employ someone and you've got them stuck in sales and then you go through the value application process with them and their life is showing something completely different and they're not inspired by any of those things. But then you judge their performance. But technically we might actually have them in their own place. It could be an admin or they could be doing something else that's actually really more aligned with their values and what they really actually enjoy. So it's a really good tool to actually understand human beings and understand behavior and how to get them really aligned with how they can really perform better in the workplace for companies, businesses and, I think, just in life in general. John.
Speaker 1:Do you generally find that when you do this work with people business owners in particular that once they see things from a different perspective that they truly want to change? Or does it sometimes happen, maybe, that they still can't bring themselves to make the change, even when they see it?
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's like a light bulb moment, sometimes a penny drops, sometimes they're actually ah, okay. So this is what I actually value and this is what my life has been demonstrating, and this is what's actually really important for me. But I thought it should have been somebody else, or I thought it should have been someone else. And because I thought it should have been somebody else or I thought it should have been someone else, and because I thought it should have been, that I was always giving myself a hard time, but now I can see what it actually really is and I'm okay with that and I understand that. So sometimes it's it's like a light bulb and it's a. It brings them back to a state of authenticity and they feel like themselves again, um, and then sometimes it's it's like shifting behaviors and linking lower values of things that they actually do want to implement, like being fitter, stronger and healthier, and actually shifting and changing those habits, and then that's a working process.
Speaker 2:Nothing, as you know, john, nothing's like fun, a one-size-fits-all. It's a work in progress for everybody and it's a coaching process for everybody, and a big part of what I do is show up and just make people accountable a lot of times and giving them a different perspective and things and an ear. A lot of the times they listen to what it is that they want to offload and get a different perspective on that. I'm not. I'm not always there solving this and solving that. It's not like the coaching process. A lot of the coaching coaching process is helping people be accountable, but also helping people know that there's somebody there showing up every single week for you that actually cares, that wants to help you perform better, that wants to help you move faster, that wants to help you grow better and that wants to see you improve as a person and a lot of the times, as an entrepreneur and as a business owner, it can be a lonely space and that one thing alone is invaluable the work of personal growth is, I think, probably never ending.
Speaker 1:There's times when you're growing, there's times when you're sort of stagnant. It's time when you're sliding backwards. I don't think you just lose yourself once in your life. You lose yourself, find yourself again, lose yourself again, find yourself again 100, man, 100.
Speaker 2:I remember I had this conversation with a friend of mine in belfast a couple weeks ago and we were chatting about his myth. He just goes to work and goes to barbie single weekend and I said I bet he's happy, goes to the bar every single weekend and it's like betty's fucking happy. Sometimes it's like you open pandora's box and you get interested in all this work and then it's just a never-ending process of wanting to find out more, wanting to evolve and wanting to grow.
Speaker 1:So, um, yeah, it's funny it's good you've been pre-empting everything I wanted to talk about, like in your responses to the question. Because the last everything I wanted to talk about like in your responses to the question, because the last thing I wanted to sort of touch on tonight was you made a post, uh, last couple of days about um changing. Basically decided you didn't want to have alcohol in your life anymore. Maybe was that about a year ago or two years ago now two years ago now yeah, and you said you got a very, very strong response to that.
Speaker 1:It feels like people's attitudes are changing across society a lot these days.
Speaker 2:I think so as well, man. I think that there's definitely a shift in people seeing that not drinking is something that's actually cool, because when I was growing up and when you were growing up, if you were out around the bars and going out with friends and mates and you weren't drinking, you could look at it as if you had two heads. It just wasn't the norm. But I think there's definitely a cultural shift and people seeing that you don't need to drink, and if you don't want to drink then that's also okay. You can go out and enjoy the night, you can do what it is you need to do and there's less peer pressure. I think I'm not too sure what it's like in the younger generation coming through, but I'm 43 and I know that um in my circle people can appreciate it and respect it. Then it's it's like a pat on the back.
Speaker 2:So about two years ago I actually went and did a plant medicine journey with Wachuma. It's a Wachuma plant and one of my intentions at that time was when I went in to do it was to just take away the need for alcohol, and it was probably about six weeks after that. I'm not saying that that was the sole reason why that happened, but think I was at that weekend. I was able to go that way a bit deeper and and release a lot of baggage and emotion and shit. I got probably about six weeks after it was the last time I had a drink.
Speaker 1:That's nearly two years ago now okay, yeah, I actually had a friend who challenged me a couple of years ago. It was like, when was the last time you didn't have any alcohol for 30 days? And I couldn't say that there was any period. And I was like, okay, can you do 30 days? And I said, yeah, I can do 30 days. So I said, okay, I'll give it a go. I did 30 days. I was like, you know, I feel quite a bit better now. Maybe I'll go a little bit longer.
Speaker 1:And then so there was two years I had zero alcohol at all. And this year I decided one time I'm hey, I'm on holiday and I have a beer, so I had a beer. It was okay, it wasn't really great or anything, but it was all right. And then, you know, once or twice I've been at like family occasions where I've had a beer, and then I've just left it that and um, I think I'm kind of that way now, where it might be, you know, four or five times a year I'll have a beer and that'll kind of be it. I don't have to be, I don't drink, but I don't either feel like any real urge to have alcohol anymore.
Speaker 1:It doesn't really do much good for me these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, if you can do it that way, fantastic. I've never really had that relationship with it, which is one of the reasons that I felt I needed to stop as well too. 2019 I went off it for a year, back on it, off it for a year, back on it, and I think when I was off it for so long, I knew what that feeling was like and how I performed and how I felt. So anytime that I went back having a few drinks again, it started to become a regular occurrence again, every single weekend and I wanted to.
Speaker 2:I wanted to get back to that place of how I felt when I wasn't drinking, and that's what the last two years has done for me. I think productivity, confidence, like setting bigger goals, just doing things differently and how it's helped me show up. I could trace it probably all back to not touching alcohol amazing Se Seamus.
Speaker 1:how do people find you? What's the?
Speaker 2:best place to look. You can get me on LinkedIn, Instagram. You can get me on my website, which is wwwseamusfoxcom.
Speaker 1:Spell Seamus Fox for the non-Irish people here who can't spell it S-E-A-M-U-S.
Speaker 2:It. It's not cmos, which a lot of people think it is cmos. No, imagine there's a h there fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't know. In america, shameless in some places is like it's slang for a private detective if you're ashamed, you're a private detective. For a private detective if you're ashamed, you're a private detective. Really. Yeah, I found that, but it's. I was in some book I read a while ago. Right, that's a first. I never heard that at all. Yeah, it's very interesting. Thanks so much for coming tonight. This was a great conversation and thank you for doing it live john.
Speaker 2:Absolutely loved it, man. Great to um connect again and great to have a conversation. Loved it, man.
Speaker 1:Great to connect again and great to have a conversation, Fantastic. I'm going to stop the stream now. Good night everyone. Thank you for watching.