Forging Resilience

21 Lindsay Bruce: "It’s up to us to show people there is another way".

• Aaron Hill • Season 1 • Episode 21

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I sit down with Lindsay Bruce for a casual chat and decide to record it just in case...just as well we did. Lindsay is ex SAS and founder of the Modern Warrior Project, empowering men to unlock their full potential and create lasting  transformation.

In our conversation, we unpack the nuances of using our military background as a springboard in our professional endeavors.

Our dialogue traverses the landscape of self-worth, the impact of societal perceptions and the unveiling of authenticity that comes with embracing one's entire history—mistakes included.

We share an intimate look at personal development through the profound lens of plant medicine, highlighting ayahuasca and psilocybin's roles in journeys towards enlightenment.

Join us for an episode that promises not only to challenge but also to inspire your journey towards a more integrated and conscious life.

https://www.instagram.com/lindsaybruceofficial/

lindsay@themodernwarriorproject.com

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Forge and Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Lindsay May, thanks for joining us today. Just to set the context in case we use this I reached out to Lindsay while I was going up and following his journey. We both happened to serve in the same unit. Interestingly enough, we were discussing about how so many times we connect with people, we don't record the conversations and they can be really quite valuable, so maybe this goes out, maybe it doesn't. So introduction done for what it's worth, but thanks for taking the time to speak to us, mate.

Speaker 2:

It's a pleasure to talk to you Now. You will, can you?

Speaker 1:

It's a pleasure, nice one, something that I just started to talk about before I pressed record. There is my own journey with using my background, and it's something that I've wrestled with and, I'll be brutally honest, it's something I used to criticise, so I potentially was a not a hater, but I wouldn't have held yes, it's easy to say, but people like you and now myself in high regard because of using the background for work, mate. So I'm really interested to hear a bit about that, because I know you speak about it relatively openly. Obviously, we don't go into all the details, but, yes, I'm just wondering what your journey with that has been like, mate, from a personal perspective.

Speaker 2:

Many twists and turns, mate, and it's actually this is the first podcast I've done with an ex-regiment guy, so it's kind of unique in itself.

Speaker 1:

No, likewise mate.

Speaker 2:

Is it? Yeah, so I thought about that just this morning because usually people are inquisitive, people are wanting to know the background, so it's kind of more, a little bit more relaxed actually, in the sense that I don't have to fucking try and like the same.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I mean, it's people love. People love hearing that stuff, don't they? And I think that's part of the point really is that people love to hear about all that because they've not been there. It's like anything. It's no different to you and I watching a documentary on Netflix about someone that plays this particular sport or whatever. So people love to know the background stuff. It's just otherwise unknown.

Speaker 2:

When it comes to the whole subject about using the background, I remember years ago I'm talking like it must have been like probably a year or so into my gym, my gym sort of career, when I opened my first gym I always remember having that feeling of I can't say anything. I can't do anything or say anything that involves having been in the regiment, because it's almost like it's just something we don't do. And I think this is a conditioning in itself that comes from those who serve before us. You know we stand in the shoulders of giants, so to speak. So we kind of like to carry that humble nature forward, because back in the days of the Malaya campaign, social media, the internet none of this existed. And there's something that I always remember a friend of mine actually said to me, and it's like sideways segue here. But there was something that do you know a guy called Chris Gethen. He's a good friend of mine. He's a giant in the fitness industry. He really really well known guy.

Speaker 2:

Anyway, I might know his name, but yes, so I remember he used to say to me all the time he's just, if I had your background, if I had your experience and I'd done it, you'd have I'd be milking the shit out of that, you know. And there was that. And there was also the subject of when CrossFit came about. And when CrossFit came, people love to hate. You know, I always, I always realised that people always go to the negative because it's how we're conditioned. You know, as human beings we look for the threat, we look for the danger, we look for the thing that's wrong. So that then shows up in modern day life in a negative fashion of looking for the criticise and whatever it is. And I always remember he said about CrossFit and we were talking about CrossFit because bodybuilders at the time hated CrossFit. It was one of those late, real fucking classic subjects of friction.

Speaker 2:

And I was always open to new things. I was always open to, you know, the possibility of new ideas, because I think that's how we learn, how we evolve. We ask questions. You know there's nothing worse than being stuck in a way just because you think that's the way you got to be. So I remember Chris once said to me mate, he says whatever happens in the industry and life and anything he says, you have to move with a curve or you get left behind, and this feeds into so many facets of life, whether it be sport, whether it be personal development, whether it be.

Speaker 2:

You know us talking about what we think we can't talk about. It can show up in any way in many forms. So I think we do have to go with it. Technology for kids, for example. You know you've got to find a balance is like. When it comes to technology for kids, you could say, well, I don't like my kids being in technology all the time, but if they're not on it, they don't learn. Therefore, they will get left behind in a digital age. So it's a bit of a fucking. We're kind of stuck between these two levels. But when it, when it comes to the whole talking about the regiment thing and all that, I think that from the way things used to be, whereas we just don't talk about it because people always frowned upon people who wrote books. You know this started back in the in the night.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure how old are you at 44. So I went there. I only did five years and I went there from. I think we probably crossed cross paths, Maybe, yeah. So yeah, I was there from. Come on maths, don't film me now. So I joined the Marines in 99. I left in 2009. So I went around 2004.

Speaker 2:

Right, okay, yeah, so we would cross paths. I remember I actually do recognize you from, you know, being around, age and stuff that. But I mean, yeah, go to go back to the point of you know the way that it used to be back in the nineties, especially when, remember, when Bravo 201 came out, there was a huge, huge publication it was. It was just fucking. But then the author of that book, for some valid reasons, got heavily criticising and really bashed by people within you know, people inside the mob, and you could say, you know, for some valid reasons, you know, depending what you take, as in that book, can't argue the fact that that was a massively popular read, just the way, the same way that SES who does wins is a hugely popular TV program.

Speaker 2:

But I think you know we could go down and rabbit hole with that one. But I won't, I won't bother with that. But around that time it was like the non disclosure agreement came in. You weren't allowed to talk about anything especially operational and this kind of, this kind of gave you the kind of the mindset or the belief of I just can't say anything, can't talk about it, I can't talk about it at all.

Speaker 1:

And I guess that the people think that for me there's some really interesting things. There is, first of all, that the judgment of others doing it really I see as a projection of a judgment I have of myself. I recognize that with the deep work that I've done. There's a self worth sort of issue there and I I never felt I belonged. But really you know, throughout, wherever I was, but really it's just I was looking through a faulty lens. Okay, there's a lot of, like you say, there's the humility thing that is drummed in from day one, week one, and there's, there's, there's valid reasons for that, isn't there, Just as you're starting to touch on there, for the operation, operational reasons and things that don't get talked about. Not everyone needs to know. And there's one more point which is probably the best one. So I left it to last and now forgotten it. But yeah, that's the way it goes, It'll come, it'll come back to me.

Speaker 2:

I think that, yeah, there you go, go on, go on. I think that we're going to be like two old men here Keep forgetting what we're saying. Yeah, just don't say Perfect, you go first. I have genuinely forgotten the first thing.

Speaker 1:

I said yeah, so so that that place often and this is my, this is a generalization, it's true to me, so it might not be true for everyone gives them sudden, suddenly. Most people come from quite a humble background, some even very troubled, where there's not very much, and suddenly they're through a quite sometimes quick progression that elevated in certain terms of status, responsibility, and they do really quite an exciting job that maybe they couldn't have envisaged themselves. So it's around the self worth type of the tribal fitting in and when you step away from that and a scene to be seen to be trying to make yourself bigger than by, like you said, stepping on the shoulders of the giants and using that as a as a personal platform, it's one of those things that shows that survival mechanism that kicks in and says you can't be seen to be bigger than that because you're speaking out nine times that of 10. No one does.

Speaker 2:

And that in itself is kind of like a very contradictory subject. This because when you, when you think about anything that said, anything that's done by people like us, you have to always, you always have to track back to the reason of why it's been done, and not only that, the reason why it's been done or said and the outcome that has positive, negative over somewhere in between. Now, I would say that, like you said, if someone is seen that in a negative fashion, it's often a reflection of them, not the thing that you're saying or the person you are. So if we take, for example, I was talking about being in the SAS and then using that to essentially build a platform for our personal branding profiles and social media. What is the? What is the reason that we're doing this? Anyway, it's to help people, yeah. So if you take the example of SAS, who there's wins the program you know I was someone who criticised that. I think I think we all were. Until you sit back and go wait a minute here, you know these guys are just like us. They're the same as us, we're all from the same place. What are we doing? We're all trying to make a living. We're all trying to do our best for not just ourselves but our families and often, as a case, all these things help people.

Speaker 2:

So if you then look at that, the longevity or the I always go back to, like the SAS who does wins thing, you know the initial knee-jit reaction from especially the old school, from the regiment, would be like instantly into critical mode with things that have been said. And it's a fucking TV show, for God's sake. You know Jesus, it's there to entertain, not unlike a movie that's kind of bastardized from. Even Braveheart is a good example of that. Right, it didn't actually happen like that, but it's a good movie, right, it's entertaining. Everyone remembers it.

Speaker 2:

And so when it comes to that subject, if you look at the long when you play the long game or something like that, the effect that that TV show is having a lot of people, it's been more positive than negative. It's not brought the regiment any problems. It's actually probably in some ways driven recruitment in a lot of ways because people look up to the guys that are DS and on the TV show, for example, and it's helped a lot of people with their personal struggles. It's giving them an opportunity to prove something themselves and, you know, get some kind of result of it and I think that's brilliant, something that someone reads. I mean Bravo 2.0,. If you were there, you'd probably criticize the fuck out of that book, and quite rightly so. But for those who that like for me personally, you know, I read that book when I was in basic training and I just instantly wanted to be in the SES.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah me too, mate. I don't know what age I was when I read it, but I was young and that had a massive impact on me and all those books that came out in around that era.

Speaker 2:

But you have to sort of look at this from a point of however you frame something, you'll always find what you're looking for, whether that's a negative or the positive. It depends on what you're looking for with anything, Doesn't it?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. So for me it's all about acceptance. So can I accept myself for who I am, what I've done, both not just from the unit we served in, but all my mistakes as well, you know, and all the good things. And, yeah, I can learn to lean into that. And it's a.

Speaker 1:

I've got to make Joe Bates and we'll run a little project or project there, a wellness business as well, the Halon, and it's like he says it's uncomfortable but it's using it as a Trojan horse, especially to get meant to talk about stuff, because so many of us, as you know, having been a coach a lot longer than I have but worked, we put on a mask and just try and plow through certain things until nine times out of 10, the wheels fall off. So if we can lean into those discomforts or explore them before the wheels fall off and we can do that in our case or in my case, by living that example, talking about certain things that most people don't, to allow them that possibility to explore for their own personal benefit then yeah, it's a winner, and that's a good point that you make, because I think it's a responsibility that we carry.

Speaker 2:

I think to be the ones who talk about things that people don't expect us to talk about, Because we have to humanize ourselves in a world of fake shit we really do Massively, massively, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I could stay here all day because it's something that, as you can probably tell, I still wrestle with, and I have people that hold that mirror to me just to show me what I'm creating. How do you mean?

Speaker 2:

I mean when you say, like when you said it earlier, that you didn't, you never felt that you belonged. And then you said about something, the thing that kind of follows you or shows up. What is that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so in terms of not belonging. So I had a really really strong inner critic constantly, but there's no doubt it helped me achieve some pretty incredible things. But I don't think, like I was alluding to earlier, it's not sustainable to constantly be the shit out of yourself, because how I show up, if I'm negative towards myself, then I'll be negative to the people in my house, criticising, angry, judgemental, and it's just not long-term healthy, I think. So there's nothing I can do about the past, but I can change my relationship or the way that I choose to think about it, and I think one of the biggest examples I'm not sure if you're aware of this or not is talking about a time when I was operational, when we got into a firefight and I felt I didn't respond how I should have.

Speaker 1:

I went into fight or flight, but I went into freeze mode basically for a very short time, but I carried the judgment and I feel like I talk about this all the time. I bore myself with it, but I think it's part of my key message as well. I carried the judgment of coward for 20-plus years without even challenging it. The really interesting thing was that maybe one or two people that understood what happened that day might have most didn't, but nobody ever told me that. It was just an assumption and I carried the weight of that burden for so long which kept me really safe and didn't ever wanna make mistakes, didn't wanna talk out in public about anything, let alone vulnerable things like that make mistakes and being a coward and feeling massive amounts of fear and freezing, et cetera, et cetera. But it's all about. It's not about, like I said, it's not about that firefight, it's about what I make it mean.

Speaker 2:

What.

Speaker 1:

I make it mean now. So, and in terms of belonging, yeah, I think it's an interesting one because yeah it's just the way I saw it.

Speaker 1:

It's just the way I saw it. And so I constantly almost like I don't like this expression, but imposter syndrome. So I jumped lots of times before I felt I was pushed. But really that was just a fear mechanism. Really I guess I was about to level up and then run away. Opportunity to level up, run away Is that like the senior rank tape? Well, yeah, I mean it had only been corporal, but it was the five year mark. So, but I can only look on this back now. At the time I thought I was exploring other opportunities, where both are probably true. But now I choose to see myself in quite a compassionate light, quite authentic, different. I've got both sides to me now. I don't have to try and prove I'm a tough guy by doing extreme stuff.

Speaker 2:

I think that's.

Speaker 1:

So that's what I mean about that mate.

Speaker 2:

And I think we can all share that common ground and that's something I realised after a long time actually is that whatever we think that we're feeling within ourselves and makes us unique or makes us the only ones who are feeling a certain way, and then we realise that every other fucker's doing the same.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, or they're too. They're concentrated on their own stuff, aren't they? They're not giving us the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And they're not giving us a bit of data to worry about our mistakes. That happened 20 years ago in the back streets of the town and that's something Because you know what it's like.

Speaker 2:

It is quite a judgmental environment, as much as it promotes positivity. They don't teach personal development in the British Army, in the regiment even and I'm not sure if you saw a post I put out this morning, but I talked about the fact that you kind of need a bit of an ego to do that job. When you're doing that job you need to be conditioned. So just fighting through things quite literally sometimes, or might be mentally within your own mind, that's a conditioning that you have to kind of maintain until you don't need it anymore. So when you leave the regiment you need to kind of lend to jets in that mindset because it doesn't serve you moving forward.

Speaker 1:

It doesn't help you or even coming home to the kids. Even coming home to the kids after a day in the office. You know that will Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it's all conditioning. You know, everything that we think about, everything we do, is all to do with our hard wire, and it's about what programs do you need for the stage you're at in life? You know, do you need to be someone who's bursting through doors and potentially facing extreme danger, or do you need to be more of a family man or a business owner or a coach? And I think at some point, you know this is why, obviously, it's a young man's job, you know. And when you get to a certain point of command or you get to a certain point of your life where you'll be leaving that phase or leaving that chapter, and you know you're not gonna be in the military anymore, you need to put on a new suit and you need to know how to communicate with others. Otherwise you just fucking, you end up. It's only a matter of time, I think, before you feel the wheels starting to fall off because you're holding on to a past identity that doesn't really, it's not really needed anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly yeah. And so that was a really interesting process for me to unravel my identity from things I've done in this case, mistakes and get to separate them, and then I decide who I am. So it's a fascinating journey, mate. Something I wanted to ask you about is I saw recently what happened to your Instagram page, by the way. I have no idea.

Speaker 2:

Ha ha ha. Did it just disappear? Did it hit? Or I got a message, random. I went on Instagram and it came up with a screen that said your account has been temporarily disabled as we feel you're not following the community guidelines, and so it said you can appeal this process. It usually takes about a day. So I did the appeal and it said it's gonna take up to 24 hours.

Speaker 2:

Within five minutes I had an email saying your Instagram account has been permanently disabled and there was no explanation and I was like you know, when you think about that in advance, you go holy fuck, if my Instagram account was shut down, what would I do? And this is a good lesson in how you frame things, and this wasn't really something I had to consciously think about to reframe. This is just the way I felt and it was really quite the opposite to what I thought I would feel it so when I thought, when I realized that I could do nothing about it, it was almost like a weird sense of calm. It was. It was almost like I don't want to say relief, but I kind of felt like I had a little bit of space to think about stuff because, as a business owner or Instagram. The more following you get, the more responsibility you feel to show up and put out content and connect with people and answer messages and all this shit. And when that was taken away through no, no sort of control, you know, with the languishing control of it myself and realizing that it had been done and there's nothing to do with it, I just thought fuck it, it's done.

Speaker 2:

And even now, when people go, have you got your Instagram recovered? I know a guy who can do this for you. Pay me a little bit of money and I went you know what? Nah, I can't be fucking All right and in some ways, actually it was a bit of a gift, as long as you can get over the vanity of not having a blue tick, because it took me ages to get that tick and I applied for those things get it not back.

Speaker 2:

And eventually it was like one time I did it and they were like, yeah, yeah, fucking, and they got accepted for a blue tick. Apparently, now you can buy them. I don't even think I can buy mine yet If I wanted to do it, because obviously for the authentication process of people knowing that it's actually you as a real account, it's a good thing to have. So I probably will do that, but I don't think I can even do that yet. However, what I would say is, when you get over the fact of there's not a number on there that says, okay, at the end you know 30 fucking 28, 30k, whatever it is, and you're starting again. As long as you can get over that, you'll realize that actually having a more potent audience is better.

Speaker 1:

You get more traction, more connection. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's even better. So to me is acceptance, and obviously you've done quite a lot of work on yourself and I know that's what you do. We'll touch on that in a minute, mate, because I know now we will use this as a podcast. I think it's quite interesting, mate. It's a first meet in chat, but, yeah, I happen to see recently that you've done some retreat and done some ayahuasca mate, and I'm curious to hear about that. And then I'd like to hear about the modern warrior project. But, yeah, what led you to ayahuasca, buddy?

Speaker 2:

You know what I think about when I talk about this. Do you remember that speech that Steve Jobs did at Stanford? It's a really famous speech. I think everyone's seen it. Everyone's the sentence of Everyone apart from me, mate. Oh, really, you do need to. It is a really good speech.

Speaker 2:

Steve Jobs delivered a speech at Stanford University many years ago, and something he said within that speech was along the lines of it might not make sense at the time, but it's when you look back and connect the dots, looking backwards, it all makes sense kind of thing. So it only makes sense in retrospect, when you connect all the dots going backwards, you realize that things happened for a reason, and the things that happened be it good, bad or ugly or someone in between they all led you to where you are now, and so I guess that's a good analogy of the way that I feel about what I've been through, because I didn't necessarily plan that in advance. I didn't lay the dots out to connect them. I can only connect them looking backwards, and things were all synchronizing to fall into place to then put me on that path, and it's something that I'm kind of strangely enough going from our last conversation about the regiment, but it's something I'm kind of I'm carefully talking about.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, yeah. So if I do pry too much, no, no, no no.

Speaker 2:

I mean I have done a pod. I did do one podcast with a friend of mine, nicol, who runs the Mr Kindness podcast. I did a podcast on that that was solely dedicated to the plant medicine thing, which goes in deep actually. So I did lay it all out on that podcast and I think the more time that goes by, the more that I reflect and the more that I process everything I'm still going through. It's all making more sense and there's some fucking absolute gold to come out of that.

Speaker 1:

So when it comes to going sorry, was some of that gold in discomfort and you don't have to go into details there, mate.

Speaker 2:

But I think it's a responsibility to go into detail.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but maybe if the time's right now. I understand that, I understand that, and especially if it's something you're processing. No, no, no, no, I told me. I mean, I'm more than happy to.

Speaker 2:

I'm more than happy to talk about anything to do with it. You know, absolutely, I think, that from a general standpoint of how did it all come about? It started off. I mean, I was. We're all kind of cut from a very similar cloth, Us guys, right. So I think we tend to spend a lot of time on our heads.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I was really one of those, those guys, because you know, I was always overthinking things, a very busy mind, but, you know, strangely, you know I would always be distracted and I found it. I found it very difficult to focus on one thing at a time, unless it was something to do with creativity, like art, or you know, I could go down a rabbit hole so I could get really into deep flow of stuff through an insane level at the same time getting into the getting to the point of sitting down to do it. It could be a challenge and I had a lot of things always in my mind and such a busy mind and I guess not being able to focus all through my life was was something that I was always looking for, that, that silver bullet for you know, the, the thing that would eventually work. Because I'd been, I'd been in the personal development journey for a long time. I'd been to seminars and read books. I mean, I'd invested a lot of money, you know, tens of thousands of pounds, over the years to into my personal development journey and all, all of it helped.

Speaker 2:

There was always something within everything I did that I took away and some things I ditched. And then I remember I remember there was. There was one day I was watching a podcast I think it might have been like the Huberman Lab or something that was talking about the use of psychedelics, the use of psilocybin, lsd and a few other things, but it was the psilocybin thing that kept on popping up. I thought, you know, microdose and psilocybin sounds like a really good idea and at the same time you've got the. You've got the over the counter type of stuff like ashwagandha and lion's mane, and all this being laced into supplements that was generating its own traction, become popular. And I've always been the kind of guy what's the fucking strongest, what's the best thing you know when you go to the shop to buy your first supplements? What's going to get the biggest, fastest, right?

Speaker 2:

So like Caldrick's special brew type of thing, yeah, and so I'm pretty light, so I so I started reading about psilocybin and then I started learning about ayahuasca and I was like what the fuck is this? You know, this sounds like fucking voodoo, crazy shit. And I think it was like Dorian Yates. He's big into his plant medicine. So I always followed Dorian Yates stuff as a bodybuilder and you know, and I think he's a fascinating guy and he was talking a lot about ayahuasca and how he'd had these massive breakthroughs and changes life. So I guess, the more I looked into it, I just felt like this is something I had to do at some point.

Speaker 2:

But at the same time, you know, I had this battle with myself because I was that guy, even though we grew up in the fucking nineties, when the rave days were at its peak, I didn't take any drugs. I genuinely didn't try anything. I was really boring. I drank alcohol. That was wise mate. I drank alcohol with my and I say boring, I say that in jest, tongue in cheek I just wasn't in a circle that we.

Speaker 2:

Strangely enough, there was a few visits we had, like we drank beer at the weekends and stuff, but none of us seemed to be into taking drugs. Just one of those, thankfully, you know and so, and in the army, obviously it's a big, big no, no compulsory drug testing coming around about the time that we've rejoined and you know, just frowned upon. So in my family my brothers hated it. They were like I can, drugs are really bad. So I guess that when it, when it, when it was growing up and this is something I have to kind of feel like I want to make really clear it's like growing up I associate the association of things like magic mushrooms, lsd, I just I put them into the same category as drugs. All drugs, recreational drugs, bad, done right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'd put a little. I'd be exactly like you and I'd put a label on it like loser as well, if I can be positive.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I thought it was weak and we thought it was, you know, and there's still certain things that people do purely from a recreational point that I still find weak, and I still think there's a heavy stigma attached to a lot of things like hard drugs. I fucking hate them, right, I am getting no space in my life for any shit that just dulls your fucking consciousness. So, but when it came to psychedelics, I didn't know anything about them. So it's supposed, when Andrew Hoobman started talking about them, it's like it's gotta be fucking something in this, because this guy doesn't promote the use of recreational drugs. This has gotta be something of cognitive brilliance that is gonna be, you know, within this. So I guess that I went down a rabbit hole with it and I wanted to learn about it all before I went near anything. And then eventually I had this random conversation in a coffee shop one day where the subject of mushrooms come up and I was like fucking hell, I'm intrigued. And this girl was like, hey, I'll hook you up with some mushroom chocolate. That was how it started and I thought maybe I could just skip the micro dose and just go for a normal dose to see what it feels like, and initially it was like it was all very much, because you know it's all to do with consciousness levels, right? It's all to do with expanding your consciousness and opening up your DMT pathway, your pineal gland, which has been fucking calcified through your life and belief systems and all that that are currently in place. So you have a conditioning which is suited to the three-dimensional reality, without getting too fucking deep here. It's like you've got this three-dimensional conditioning which is all related to your five senses that are required to see, feel, touch and hear what's going on. So I didn't know what to expect. So I just I want to take this to improve my focus, to improve my cognitive function, and what I noticed was I got a little bit of conscious visuals and relaxed, I relaxed feeling about it. And then the next morning I always remembered that every time I did it it was every few weeks, I would do it at the time Every time I did it, I always felt really good the next day I always felt so fresh and so clear and almost like it had the fucking best sleep ever. So I thought, well, this is kind of like the opposite of alcohol, like you don't just not get a hangover. You actually feel fucking mega the next day, and there is literally no negative side effects to this. So then that just sort of evolved into finding out what else could be achieved with this.

Speaker 2:

And the more that I was doing mushrooms, the more I wanted to find out about things like DMT and Iowaska. Well, obviously, dmt is the main ingredient of Iowaska, but that was a different level than I thought. If I'm going to do this, I need real guidance. I need something to really fucking guide me through this. And so, between you and I, I tried DMT, which was, I think, a turning point, because after I did DMT, I then did what was called a hero dose of mushrooms psilocybin. Hero dose is like five grams. Wouldn't recommend it to anybody that doesn't know what they're doing. But I was guided along this.

Speaker 2:

I was guided in this process, thankfully, because what came out of that was something pretty fucking profound. It was life changing. I'm not even gonna fucking play that down. It was literally. It blew the lid off and what's seen can't be unseen.

Speaker 2:

And so after that I had a chance conversation with a friend of mine who had been to Ecuador to do Iowaska, told me all about it and I literally felt like I was being called forward to do this. It just felt like this. It just feels so right for me and I'm so glad that I did it, because that started the journey of what started off as a hack for focus. That then started to sort of open up my mind to, I guess on a journey of enlightenment and I use the term spirituality in a very genuine sense, because it's like I never pictured myself even thinking the way I do now and I guess over the last year or so that my mind has been opened up to what's really possible and what I can connect with that.

Speaker 2:

When I went to Ecuador it was because it's not just about the medicine, it's about the whole process of shamanic traditions and the indigenous ways of how they live over there, how they think, how they live and how they believe. When you get an insight into that and you sort of you're open to it because this is going back to the ego of you need to be able to kind of relinquish the ego, to know that things are then possible. And when you do that, that's when things change, because your ego will hold you back from even accepting anything that's new or different or anything like that. So I guess now that where I am now with it is just I'm on the path now. So it's not like a lot of people think which is the way I thought about things that plant medicine, especially ayahuasca, go and do ayahuasca and then it's gonna fix all your problems. Then you come back and you never need to do it again. It's like a fucking a one dose fucking thing. It's really not like that. It's a medicine that is a healing medicine that is there to do a job, to open up your consciousness and expand your consciousness. And the more that you do it, the more enlightened you're gonna be.

Speaker 2:

And I guess the sort of the path of enlightenment or spirituality or whatever you wanna call it, is, when you make that move and you go on it. It's nothing to do with religion, nothing like that. It's to do with consciousness. That's what it is. And now that when you go on it it's almost like there isn't, then you're not going back because what I said before, what's seen can't be unseen, what's been experienced can't not be experienced now.

Speaker 2:

So I guess now it's just a case of stay on that path and continue to develop myself and be the best human being I can be and going back to my connecting the dots, moving back, looking backwards, when I think about what I'm doing now, what it means to me and what I feel my purpose is. It all relates to helping other people, and I believe that this is all part a major part of the process, because all we are trying to do as coaches is I give people the give people the sort of insight into how they can live better, because they're at a point at the moment where they're so dulled down and seeing the world through such a thin straw that they sometimes can't see a way out of that. And it's up to us, I think, to go. There is a better way. Take them by the hand and show them the path you know. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I love that, mate.

Speaker 1:

There's so many things to unpack there and I sense a certain level of emotion in you, but that comes through me, yeah, and that is possibility.

Speaker 1:

And what really struck me there is that I think so many of you us, like you mentioned is I always like to imagine it as a triangle. So the base of the triangle is almost like our intuition and our guts. Next is up is the heart and the emotion, and then the top is the intellect and thinking with our head, and most of us are caught, like you said, in our ego, in our head, and it's just quietening the voices and what can come from intuition and emotion, whilst very uncomfortable, there's no doubt in my mind that is absolutely, incredibly powerful and profound and, interestingly enough, I've been able to have insights of that through coaching and I've gone to the deepest, darkest corners that I felt possible at that time with my coach to explore those, those difficulties, looking at that situation, that firefight, and really getting to look at it through a different lens, one of compassion, with not a lot of ego. There's no doubt there's some limits to that because I'm human but, yeah, releasing that the ego is what really jumps out at me there.

Speaker 2:

And the thing is, this stems back to things like what will people think? Because that's really what it all comes down to, because what are people going to think about me? So you fear being judged. That's why we tend to sort of compare ourselves to others, minimize ourselves to others. We get in this trap of not wanting to move left, right or forward, because we think that we're going to be criticized for it or we're going to fuck something up and it's like it's all in your head Maybe, but it's only momentarily.

Speaker 1:

And, like you said, if you've got that insight and you can see that purpose is to help others, then some things that was very powerful me and led me to start this podcast is just to speak my truth. It's not the truth, you don't have to believe it, don't even have to like it, but it's really empowering for me because I want to help other people get that, like you said, that snippet, that insight of I don't want to say everything's possible, but so much more is possible, even if physically nothing changes the way that we see that world. Rather than through that narrow straw, it just gets opened up and there's so much more in there isn't there? And I hate, I would say, but there's more joy, but there's also probably more fear as well, isn't it? That's part of the responsibility of having those insights?

Speaker 2:

I think yeah, and inadvertently it does change, because it changes within your own narrative. But you know, I think it's not maybe just an age thing, but for me it has been. In a way. I do feel like the older I get and the more I do, you know, I really feel the change. I can genuinely feel, I can feel genuine wisdom.

Speaker 2:

Now, I think it's hard to get that when you're in your 20s, maybe even in your 30s, you just don't feel like you're quite there yet. You're still learning, you're still a pup and I think that when you get into your 40s, for me it's like the sort of mid 40s of my life has been really pivotal. But I think that's two things I've done, obviously, and things I've decided to learn and open up to. But I now think that, you know, there's true experience coming through, whereas I think what we do when we're younger and this is OK because it's all a learning process is that people always look to other people to see how they've got to be. Or, you know, maybe I should be doing it like that, or maybe he's right, or maybe that's the message I want to put out there.

Speaker 2:

And I think, when it comes down to what you said a minute ago, like the triangle, and how you've interleaved, at the top being in your head, and then the deeper down you go, you've got deeper into the heart and the gut of intuition and trusting yourself and going with what you feel, and I think that then links to authenticity, which gives you such fucking peace.

Speaker 2:

You know, when you're authentic, not everyone's going to like it, it's OK. Not everyone's designed to like everybody. There are certain things that you can talk about that people are going to hate, but it's fine, because some people are going to love it and it's going to help some people. And I think it all tracks back to if the intention is good, if you're genuinely coming from a good place, you'll always be able to look at yourself in the mirror and go. You know what some people don't like that, but at the same time, it's genuinely what I believe in. And if it's genuinely what you believe in, speak your fucking truth. Stop trying to just be popular or making sure that you're liked by the majority, because your message will then become really fucking vanilla and watery.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, something I still need to practice and lean into.

Speaker 2:

There's certain things that I think are my opinions and should I be sure what people are going to think of me if I say fuck or content on a podcast. Well, who fucking cares? Something's not going to like it and someone's going to go. I love the way he swears.

Speaker 1:

It's just a word. And going back to what you're talking about, maybe in the forties we're tired of thinking and nobody really teaches us, or at least in my experience, how to use intuition or instinct or understand emotion rather than something to run from, just acceptance. You know that word leaps out at me so many times, which is probably something I need to look at myself. But again, but.

Speaker 2:

I think that's a good thing, because when you've got something that really resonates with your league, acceptance is obviously something that you go back to and I think that's really powerful because you can take so much from that. You can go places from that one word alone. It's like. I love self-awareness, I love trust, you know, I love those two things because really, when people are scared, when people don't take action, when they're doing shit they think they should be doing because of other people saying it or society says it, it all links back to fear and it all links back to trust yeah, lack of trust in themselves.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly that, yeah, which is yeah, and for me I can share. One of my insights is the belief I'm enough. I'm enough. I don't have to do Ironman or SAS election to know that I'm enough. I already was, but I never saw it. I never saw it, so that was really releasing. I can even feel just the pangs of emotion there as I remind my younger self you all right, boy, you all right, yeah. Incredibly moving stuff and something that I thought was interesting, stuff that I definitely want to explore in the future. I want to get clear on my intention first, yeah, something I've spoken to quite a lot of people. I even had a woman, dr Kate Paite, who does some fascinating work around PTSD and psychedelics and how it can help people that are exposed to that sort of level of trauma, help them recover, and so many mates of mine as well getting so many profound insights through that experience.

Speaker 1:

It is, but again, I've heard horror stories of it as well, though, so yeah, it's a time and a place, if you're doing it in somebody's back barn and is a mate of a mate it's on the cheap and dirty. It's potential for danger.

Speaker 2:

And this is what this is what gives it a bad name, because what do people do? What would the? How do people usually experience things like magic mushrooms. They're in a field of the mates. They're probably drinking alcohol, which dulls your consciousness anyway. So when you, when you don't understand something, it's a really, it's like anything. The fucking knife can save your life and it can take a life.

Speaker 2:

Lots of things we look at around us in the room that we're sat in can be either, you know, really useful or really harmful. Psychedelics is no exception and I would say to anybody watching it's not something you want to fuck about with, because it's not going to kill you. At the same time, it can give you a really bad experience, which then inhibits the same medicine helping you in the future, because if something, if something, if someone has a bad experience the first time to do something, there's a chance, the chance that they're not going to want to go back to it, and so it needs to be respected. And this is what kind of grates me with the whole plant medicine thing. When I hear of had a conversation with someone not so long ago and they didn't know anything about what I did with plant medicine. They just tell me the fact that they were in Amsterdam and they'd been in the piss and then they went into a shop and bought all the mushrooms and got high on mushrooms and I thought it's so fucking disrespectful to the plants that are there to heal people and it's got to be taken seriously. And people are abusing that because you know it's a really powerful medicine and if you treat it with respect and you practice it in a way that you should be practiced, then it can have seriously profound effects and that's why people should do it under the supervision of a shaman or somebody really knows what we're talking about and when you learn the fact that it's not just about the medicine the medicine is a facility to help you open up your mind and your pathways and to heal you, but without relinquishing control of your ego, you're not going to get to that point.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things that I read not so long ago actually which is a very careful how I say this, but it was on a YouTube video that I watched from a doctor who is an expert in psychedelics One of the two things that people do wrong with psychedelics they take it in the wrong environment, inexperience without intention and all that sort of stuff, and they also don't take it off. So for me, the turning point was a heroic dose of psilocybin that gave me insight into something else. That was when I got insight into another realm, which then made me think, holy fuck, this isn't in my head, can't be. It's got to be possible that there's something else. We're not fucking this, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

And then when it came to Ayahuasca San Pedro, which is the two main medicines that I took over in Ecuador, that then made me realise that this is about opening up your fucking mind to let something else in and be connected to something else. It's not about consciously just getting off your tits so you can have a laugh. That's abuse at the end of the day. And this is the difference. When does a healing plant medicine become a drug? When the intention is not there for the right reasons.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting you say that because my old man he's retired now but the last 10 years of his career he set up a charity, a drug and alcohol counsellor, so he was like a therapist basically. And so it's interesting because I come from a religious family. I'm not a practice in Christian myself, but the way that drugs and alcohol were talked about and taught was, like you, in a different context, not seen in a good life. Obviously I didn't listen to that bit about alcohol and I joined the Marines.

Speaker 2:

The old of that.

Speaker 1:

But the interesting thing left that was me trying to fit in. I recognise that now. So, having a really interesting conversation with my dad, without religion, about psychedelics, and it was along the lines of if you only need that I think it's interesting to comment on what you touched on. He was saying if you only need that to get insight or to feel you belong or to see your wisdom, that's when it can start to become the slippery slope of your tendency or the habit, rather than….

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's just scape, so people don't take the lessons because it's going to teach you a lesson. But you go to school and you get taught lessons, whether you use the information or not, it's up to you. There are lots of lessons in life that you're fucking. You make a mistake tomorrow and then you make the same mistake a week later. You've not learned a fucking lesson the universe is trying to teach you, so it'll keep on showing up, whether that's being skint, being unhappy, being fat, whatever it is. The lessons are there and there are lots and lots of fucking signposts and warnings that here is the lesson you're trying to be taught here. But if that is a world of….

Speaker 2:

And I've spoken to people like this, actually, and people like that usually come from sort of a background of substance abuse or whatever, and the thing is there's a hardwired habit of going to something to try and fix your problems. It's not for that, you know, it's like buying a fucking gym pass and not going to the gym. Yeah, so when people do something for complete escapism, and then it's almost like I'm going to escape into this other reality for a little while to forget my problems, and then they come back with all the lessons and all the insight, and then they just keep on doing the same shit again, which does happen. So it's not about…. It's like when I went to Guy's Cigarada in Ecuador. They tell you this out there, they say look, this is not a fix, you're not going to change here. You're going to get the insight, you're going to get the practices, you're going to be given information, tools, lessons. When you go back is when the work starts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when you get to implement them. Selection you don't pass selection go, just chill the fuck out now. And people I've known people who have done that Pass selection, just chill out and then don't last that long, right. But it's a bit like doing selection, then getting to the squadron going yeah, I can just chill now because I've made it through selection. You and I both know you fucking earned your fucking crust when you get to the squadron yeah, because everyone's done it Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I remember putting our peg right on day one, the Sartre Major, who you will know I'm not going to say his name like that. You don't mean anything to me, lads All you've done is walked around the hills.

Speaker 2:

This is where it starts.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah yeah, 100% right, I didn't. Yeah, yeah, interesting. But yeah, talking about lessons, it's like for me, acceptance that keeps leaping out at me, so I'm really getting. It's not the first time today. And there you go. There's a lesson, there's an insight in that, so I can go back and reflect on that. And what am I not accepting, mate? So you've already answered the next question that I was going to go ask you in terms of your purpose. But how does that, or how does this experience shape the way that you guide your lads in the modern warrior project? And talk a little bit about that, mate.

Speaker 2:

I think it comes from a place of experience whereby, if you can understand yourself a lot more, you'll understand other people, because we're all human beings and when you learn that it's just a process and it's like a system and it's all patterns that we have and we're all conscious fucking beings at the end of the day and we're all connected. So we all have so much more in common than we give ourselves credit for. But we tend to think that we're all very individual in our unique ways and whether it's my anxiety, my ADHD, my fucking this, my that or the other, these are all labels and identities that we tend to hold within ourselves and we then put a barrier up between ourselves and other people and not realising that we're all the fucking same. You know, in a lot of ways. So to be a coach you know what it's like, aaron you know to be a coach, you have to speak from experience, because that's authentic and if you don't have experience, it's very hard to fake that shit. People will see through it and they'll feel it as well, like passion People can feel if someone's passionate about something, in their words, in their manner, in their energy, and if you just fucking faking it till you make it, you'll get you. So far might end you a few quid, but you'll eventually hit a wall.

Speaker 2:

And so, when it comes to the approach I have with the guys who I coach, the one word that sticks out for me about, like acceptance does for you, is empathy. You have to understand someone because when someone's downloading their challenges, their problems, their fucking you know their struggles, the things that are always holding them back and the frustrations, if you can speak to them from a place of you know, I fucking really get this. You know, I really feel it, because I was the same, I still get the same and I can understand you. People just want to be understood, they want to be listened to, because when that happens you open up a fucking channel that connects both of you. And coaching comes back to connection, because people don't come to the Modern Warrior Project because of the Warrior Pyramid and all the fucking Gucci shit that's within the program, because no one knows about anything in the program that's not really out there. You know it's just a message that connects with people, with some people, and that starts with how you convey that message and the energy that you put out there, because people will either resonate with it or they won't.

Speaker 2:

And there are probably plenty of people out there who think I'm a total dick and I'm cool with that. That's also something I'm like. You know what you're never going to be in my sort of sphere of interest or you're never going to bring yourself forward for me to be able to help you in any way. I've got zero resentment for that at all because that's something they have to deal with. And go back to what we said earlier about if someone's critical of someone else, there's usually a reflection of themselves. So you've got to be comfortable with the fact that not everyone's going to like you. And I guess that when I speak, when I talk to the guys who I coach, I guess it comes down to understanding them as best I can and just trying to relate to them and all the coaching stuff that what they need is really simple. This is the other thing that's been misconstrued is that everyone's looking for the next complex hack to be different than everybody else. Mate, you know the score. It's fucking basics. All day long it worked Boring basics.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's usually the non exciting stuff that works the best.

Speaker 1:

Well, mate, I am. I'm chuffed to fuck with press record on that, on that little chat.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I am as well, mate, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Mate, if I am going to post this as a podcast, if you're right with that, absolutely. So, for that reason. Where can people get in touch with you and find out a bit about you and your work?

Speaker 2:

This is the first podcast I've done that I can. Actually, the information I'm going to give you will still stand to be relevant, because all the other podcasts have got my old Instagram handle. So I have got a new Instagram which is Lindsay Bruce official. I don't have a website yet. I'm having a website built, but you know, instagram is probably the best place initially, but also they can contact me directly at Lindsay at the Morning Warrior projectcom.

Speaker 1:

Nice, I'll put those links in the show notes. And yeah, pleasure to meet you, mate. Thanks very much for sharing a bit of your story and having a chat with them. Yeah, it's been brilliant.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, see you again soon, be sure. Thank you very much.