End of Season 1 overview and update on the Pod

Hi all, 

I've had a lot of questions recently as to whether there is any more podcasts coming out.  Well, yes there are and i've used this episode to explain whats happening.  In short, it's coming back in the coming days! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Hello everyone. I thought I would give a bit of an overview of where uh the Duratus Mind podcast is at. I've had a few people question me uh through various different channels to understand what's happening with it. Is there more episodes lined up? Uh, in short, yes, there is. Uh, and kind of a bit of a cover all really. Now, what I do want to sort of firstly say, I guess, is like mega thanks to everyone that's listened, that's shared. Uh, I genuinely appreciate it. Again, the the numbers, to be fair, blow my mind. We've we've literally had hundreds of thousands of downloads, hundreds of thousands of views uh through the YouTube channel again, and I've absolutely been winging it. So there's a lesson there that's will come out, no doubt, later on. But uh you know, first and foremost, thank you to everyone that's listened and shared and fed back, give a review on Apple, whichever podcast you have. Uh it's all super appreciated. Um, and I think it's worth me actually talking about the reason why and how the podcast came about to begin with. As some of you will know, um, I've spoken about this a couple of times. I was leaving the military and I was trying to find what the next chapter looked like. I'd my my penultimate two jobs in the military had been in charge of recruitment first for uh the special boat service and then then overseeing recruitment uh as a sergeant major for the whole of UKSF and um two super interesting jobs. And what I've learned predominantly through them is how much, well, firstly, there was a coaching and mentoring element to what it was they did. Uh, what uh to get success from people in that field, uh, I needed to coach some people, I needed to mentor others, needed to have a team of people that could be trusted to be honest, authentic in what success looked like. And uh I was fascinated by that journey and met some amazing dudes, um, a lot of who now serve in those organizations, but I also met a lot of people that didn't uh make it and weren't successful, and there's some absolute dudes there too. Uh, and it taught me a lot. Uh, one thing I've I learned from it that was that I really enjoyed going on little journeys with people, uh, uh, whether that was as a coach, whether that was as a mentor, but ultimately uh it was as someone that it wasn't about me, it wasn't about my successes, it wasn't about ticking my life boxes, it was about them achieving their goals, dreams, whatever it was, having the career that they hoped to have. And I and I absolutely loved it. And so uh I hoped that I could create uh a bit of a business doing exactly that, coaching and mentoring other people and achieving whatever it was that they wanted to achieve. Now, I had no idea how to go about that. Uh, I knew I had an interesting network of people um from my military career, but also outside of that. And I thought, well, I'm gonna unpick the successes that they've had because I'm genuinely interested in that. Now, putting your head above the parapet when you've got a background from special forces is just awkward. There's all kinds of things going on in your own mind, there's opinions of others which we know that you shouldn't care about, but we ultimately do because our our whole careers we've been taught to be a team player and to think of the group so much more than ourselves, to be selfless, to be humble. And so to put your head above the parapet and talk about your experiences is challenging. Now, I've come to know that there's loads of benefits for other people to learn from them. And I'm not talking about the tactical detail because that's personally the stuff that for me should be kept behind closed doors, but also people generally aren't interested in. So um, I like to think I've never really spoken about any of that in any detail because it's not the important stuff, but how we felt as humans, what we did to overcome those challenges, which were pretty outlier experiences, which I fully appreciate now. Uh uh that there's a lot to learn and there's a lot of benefit for people in in lots of different sectors, uh, not just competitive spec uh sectors, but also uh just people trying to manage through life. And so there's just a lot of things to learn and to share. And and the podcast enabled me to do that. So that's what I did. I set off the very first episode, uh, it was NIMS, uh, and uh that was the thing that pushed me to push that uh episode out and even do it was the tight timeline that NIMS was against, trying to raise money for this amazing cause, this 14 peaks that he was looking to do, that everyone on the planet thought was mad, especially in his circles. But a few of us uh knew he wasn't mad and knew that it absolutely was achievable. And I desperately wanted to help him. But for those that didn't know or didn't know, I NIMS asked me uh as we both left the SPS at the same time, almost the same week. And NIMS asked me if I'd be his ops director, ops officer for for ops manager, call it what you will, for 14 peaks. And it was a massive opportunity, and I'd I would have loved to have to have done it and jumped at it. And uh unfortunately, it didn't offer me the security that I needed at that time, leaving the military, not knowing where the money was going to come from. Ultimately, NIMS could die doing it. You know, there was always that risk. And um, for security-wise, I needed to earn some cash and put some money on the table for my family. And you know, yes, there was a long game to that, and but NIMS couldn't afford to pay anybody, there was no money in the pot. All the money rightfully had to go, and NIMS achieving that goal. Uh, clearly, as that progressed, other organizations got interest, and we're talking some way down. You've all seen, I'm sure, the documentary. If you haven't go check it out on Netflix, it's uh it's it's unreal. Uh, and what NIMS does now and where he's gone with it with his passion, his dream is unbelievable. Uh, again, I've been asked, have I got any regrets? Absolutely not. It wasn't the right time for me. I think this is one of the things that we've learned from the podcast is your circumstances are exactly that. You've got to work into your circumstances. You can't compare yourself to others that have got different circumstances. My predominant circumstances are that I'm a husband and father to uh four children. And that's important that I meet their needs uh first and foremost. That's important to me. I'm not saying that is everyone else's most important or should be, uh, but that's the most important to me. So for me, working alongside NIMS at that early stage just wasn't achievable. But I knew I could help him by talking about it and releasing it as a podcast, and clearly uh that really helped. Um, so that's where the podcast came about, this this interesting network. I was never looking to make money from the podcast. I like to think most of you have seen that I've never advertised on the podcast. Again, with the numbers that we get, um, I could be earning a tidy little sideline for it. But when I listen to podcasts, the adverts come on and it does my editing. So I don't want that. And so there's other ways I found to be making money. And so I just thought I'd keep the podcast clear of those adverts. Um will that always be the case? I don't know. But that's certainly been something that I've tried to uh ensure keeps happening now. So uh I hope there's been value there. Uh, but ultimately, again, the podcast wasn't about me promoting anything except my fascination for learning and learning from the people that I was able to talk to. You probably wouldn't appreciate or understand that we just didn't talk like about some of the subjects uh as I have done on the podcast within my old organization. Guys didn't often share their own experiences, guys didn't often uh open up with their own vulnerabilities with regards to how they were feeling in the moment and how they dealt with those problems, the kind of hurdles that they have to had to overcome to achieve that because we're all in the same boat, and yeah, we've always been there. And being the storyteller just wasn't the done thing in those organizations. Again, but talking about it has so many benefits with the people. So it's been a real privilege, privilege going on that journey and speaking to a few of my former colleagues, and I know you've enjoyed them too. So uh, again, so much to learn. And again, I want to share that learning. I want to other people to be able to benefit from their lessons, their hard lessons in some cases, too. Um, one of the main things I've learned, like firstly, be clear in what you're trying to achieve. Like that's absolutely massive. Problems are going to present themselves as you set about doing whatever it is that you're looking to achieve, and you've got to be able to navigate them. Well, having a clear vision of what you're trying to achieve is absolutely vital. NIMS was almost the perfect first guest with that. What he was trying to achieve is absolutely astronomical. Um, and is his own family, his own support network were against what he was trying to achieve. He had to hang up on his own brother, shut in that family, that loved one's voice out of his own head to achieve what it was that he needed to achieve. And uh, that's a vital lesson right there. So I learned that consistency wins over bursts of energy every single time. That's a common thread through everything. Everyone that I've spoken to has had longevity in whatever it is that they do. That's always been something that I've been fascinated by. So consistency wins and managing yourself, managing your own well-being, managing your own uh resilience is absolutely critical. You need to be able to manage stress and pressure that you feel, certainly in the moment. That's another lesson. Uh Foxy was taken to the limit with it. Both Dylan Hartley and Adam Peatie both communicated the strategies that they'd learnt to cope in the moment with those pressures. Again, some important lessons there. Um but also simply doing high standards or keeping high standards and consistently working on them is hard and motivation undoubtedly will wane. Therefore, you've you've got to create habits, you've got to be able to create systems that enable you to just keep moving forward each day, each week, each month, each year. So uh creating habits and being self-disciplined with those habits initially so that they are just what you do. Training is just what I do. I don't have to be particularly self-disciplined in it these days. I actually feel bad when I've not done enough. And that's this creating this habit. Uh, this is this motivation that will get you out of the door to do what needs to be done. You also need to surround yourself with others who are clearly you clearly get what it is that you're trying to achieve. Great teams achieve great things. Rarely do individuals do anything spectacular all by themselves. Most people I've spoken to have been surrounded by other great people who've been able to compare notes with, encourage, uh, sometimes even give a different perspective and challenge their thinking or comment. Um, this is in part why we created the the durators in a circle. Reach out if you're interested in that group of like-minded people that are all able, they're on a similar mission, and we're we're looking to achieve different things, yes, but we've got uh peer-to-peer support, a bit of mentorship from the durators coaches, uh, and and that's something that's going great. So, again, if that's something you're interested in, reach out. Um, the lesson don't give up. Uh, you know, it's vital that if it's clear what you're trying to achieve, then then but giving up is never the answer. No one that I've spoken to has given up. Uh, there's things have changed, challenges have presenting themselves, they've had to be agile, um, they've broken bones, they've broken limbs, they've lost family, all of these things, but they've not given up and they've kept and found a way to just keep moving towards the goal that they chose. So as I went through the podcast, uh, I was meeting more and more the same conversations around the same topics, and I was presenting the same things to me. These are the key lessons. Um, it's the same with a high performance podcast that I listened to, same with other popular podcasts, that there's common trends and threads. So these are the things that we identified. Um, people know what it is they need to do. However, people also need to be reminded more than they need to be told in the first place. And so there's this constant need for people to be reinforced the messages that uh they they need to do, whether that sleep seven to nine hours, drink enough water, find something you're passionate about, consistently take small steps towards your goal, whatever that is, people need to be reminded because they constantly fall foul, because we're imperfect humans. We we fail, we stumble, we think wrong things, we um get inside our own heads sometimes. And so people need to be reminded, and they there's various different mechanisms that we need. Um so these are all important. Uh as the podcast has developed, it did create quite a big audience and um work transitioned through that. I became able to access lots of I high performing organizations from the the top Premier League football teams to uh elite sport elsewhere to uh elite businesses. Uh we be we started to speak to companies around leadership, and my mind was uh very clear that the mindset work that I was doing to begin with was great, but the leadership work uh we fell into almost was so much more valuable in many ways because working with leaders enables us to impact um more and more people, bigger organizations, and I I got personally a genuine uh sense of fulfillment from that. And I know our other coaches, uh Reary uh and Martin, that were both brought in, feel exactly the same. Uh, so Reary and I spent some time just distilling down our leadership thinking. We'd spent many years learning about leadership, developing our own leadership skills. But again, we'd been taught what the military had taught us, and again, the military loves a good uh mnemonic. Uh, the one we were taught for leadership was was Jubwick, for those listening that will know that. Again, Google, Jubwick with judgment, understanding, bearing. These things, these things stick in your head, but it's it's seven letters, it's quite complicated. It's a lot of comp there's a lot of things to it. And what does it really mean? So we wanted to distill it down into something simpler, a bit more practical, but still maintaining that that authenticity, which is so vital. Um, so we came up with two principles and three uh qualities, uh, and we talk about these with organizations now. Two principles being it's not about you, leadership is never about you, and secondly, counter to that, it is all about you, and it's all about the role model that you present, it's about what you do, and it's about how you can impact the people that you work with. So, slightly contrary to those two principles, but again, we explain more in the workshops that we do, but also the three qualities rather than having a long list of things that you need to be as a leader, because there's lots of things you need to be as a leader, we wanted to simplify it and we distilled it down to authenticity, accountability, and communication. So authenticity, accountability, and communication. And we deep dive these in our in our uh conversations with our leaders, we deep dive them with our workshops, and we we came to work with senior police groups, um, sport, law firm partners, private equity sort of organizations that I never imagined that I'd be uh walking amongst, but it's been it's been a thoroughly enjoyable ride. We also started to then see patterns with the people that we work with. Lots of learned leadership experience within their jobs, their roles, some good, but lots of bad. And then I broke down my leadership experience for the military. And and one of the things that we noticed massively different was how the military is able to train its people so much better in leadership. You know, we get lots of time to train in this. I'd argue it's probably about a 70-30 split of training versus doing. Uh, the public sector is much worse than that. The the public sector's maybe 20% training, 80% doing, whereas the corporate sector, they've got nowhere near that. They maybe 1% less than 5% training for the roles because it's all got to be about doing, because um, organizations, businesses are often about profitability, and it's it's hard sometimes to quantify the training value. Now, again, we dispute that, and we think most organizations need more training, which is why we do what we do. Um, but most organizations really struggle to to get there uh with the time. So we started to work with the leaders, um, some firstly out of their own pocket, out of their own money, some with their work budgets. Again, we flex to both. Um, and we started to recognize the same patterns and the same gaps of where we derators can really add value. Also realized that we don't have all the answers. So, from what I've learned from what Riri's learned, from what Martin, from our future coaches that we're bringing a few on board, uh, looking forward to introducing them as well. But uh, from what we've all learned, um, that we've we've not got all the answers. It's it's never as simple as that. Leadership, especially people, working with people is complex. And you're always going to be stumped sometimes, and you're always sometimes going to just have to do what you think is the right thing. This is where your values, your principles, and your qualities come into come into it. But what we also realized, and I certainly realized that I can start to speak to other leaders now with the podcast, and I can start sharing their insights. You know, we as humans we learn, we learn by stories, and we're going to be sharing uh in the next bank of uh podcasts genuine authentic stories from genuine authentic leaders. And I'm super excited to be sharing them again. You know, excuse me, I'm I'm learning, I'm looking forward to all of you learning too. I've no doubt we will see some similar patterns emerging again, but I'm excited by that, and I'm genuinely enthused by the contribution that the network again that I've got that I can tap into to speak to about these things will make for people listening. And I want you to come on that journey with us. So um please keep spreading the news uh or keep spreading the uh podcast around. When? Well, as soon as you hear this, in the next coming days, I'll get the first one. I've got three recorded already, and I'm looking forward to sharing them. I never wanted to do a season one, season two, series three, season three uh of a podcast. If I'm honest, I thought it sounded a bit pretentious that you'd have seasons with it, but um I definitely see a transition in the podcast, and uh it's definitely going to be taking more of a leadership perspective. Uh, we're still gonna dive into mindset, there's still going to be golden nuggets within there from uh why people do what they do and how they've managed to get where they are. This is just a topic that I'm fascinated by, but the type of person that we're going to be speaking to and the the focus of the conversations is going to be around these leadership issues. So I hope you're excited by that. Um, some of you be like, oh, maybe not, but uh I hope that's not the case for most of you. I'm I'm really looking forward to it. And I welcome any uh suggestions, any thoughts on who we should get on. And if you've got access to any of those people, that's always useful. It's okay telling me Elon Musk, get Elon Musk on the pod. It's not as simple as that. I'd love to chat to him. But uh, if any of you know him, he's your great uncle, anything like that, then then please reach out. He'd be a topical one right now for sure. So that's it. I just wanted to keep you posted. I wanted to keep you updated, and I hope that's given you the insight of where the podcast at, how it came about, the journey it's gone through, and the evolution that's happened, and both with the podcast, but also uh Duratus as a business and why we are where we are with it. And keep enjoying the ride.