S3 Ep108 Ben Newton: Complete But Not Finished

Ben Newton has spent his life leading in extreme environments military, close protection, fire service, industrial rescue. But none of that prepared him for the hardest thing: leading himself.

In this conversation, Ben and Aaron trace the thread that runs through every high-pressure role Ben has held and every identity he has worn. From a near-fatal anaphylactic episode on a rooftop in Afghanistan, to a nine-day cruise where silence finally caught up with him, to finding his tribe on a Brazilian jiu-jitsu mat before sunrise, Ben's story is about what happens when the character you've built starts to crack and what's underneath it.

At the centre of it all is a deceptively simple idea: lead yourself first. Not as a performance. Not as a discipline hack. As the only honest foundation anything else can be built on.

This one moves slowly and hits hard. If you've ever been the go-to person for everyone else while quietly losing ground on yourself this conversation is for you.

Reach out to Ben via Kaizen Summit, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Transcript

Welcome And Show Premise

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to Forge and Resilience. Real conversations for high performers facing transition. I'm Erin Hill. Join me as I talk with people about challenge change and the adversity they faced in life so we can learn from their experiences, insights, and stories. Today on Forge and Resilience, I'm joined by Ben Newton. Ben's a father, a leader, and the co-founder of Kaisen Summit, where it brings high performers together to step out the noise and take a hard look at how they're really leaving and leading. His work sits at the intersection of business, personal development, and martial arts, grounded in the idea that growth isn't a one-off event, it's a daily standard. Ben, welcome to the show, buddy. Thank you very much, Ron. Mate, for people

Ben’s Unusual Career Path

SPEAKER_04 0:48

that don't know you, give us a little bit about your background and what brings us to the sat here today having this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Okay, so I'll uh I'll give the highlights uh allow lights and then I'll kind of dig a little bit further into that. So I started off life in the military. I had a relatively short career, which was cut short through a medical discharge. I then returned back to my native homeland of Birmingham and I was in the SC world. I ran a gym for a number of years uh whilst I was also contracting for uh a major sporting brand. Um then I was into close protection as well. I did a number of contracts in the close protection world before going back into uniform, joining the fire service. Uh, was on a technical rescue team for a number of years in in the fire service and then transitioned into private rescue in confined space and industrial rescue. And over the years I've picked up these these different nuggets of of information and uh experiences, which has then now led me into, as you say, running Kaisen Summit. And to scratch beneath the surface on that run is as as we were mentioning just off air, I never thought I would be in business because I spent the first part of my life letting myself down. And through understanding my own limitations, my own image of myself, my own self-talk, and coming out of the embers of who I thought I was, turned out not to be, then trying to understand how I can be who I I want to be has led me to where I am now with the level of self-awareness that that I have and still want to gain. And uh and so although I have feel that imposter syndrome very deeply, when I really sit and think about it, I am where I am because of the experiences that that I have had, and and I wouldn't change any of it because it has shaped a colourful existence, um, which has had led me to many many different avenues and areas that I never thought possible, and I'm excited for the future, which is something that was was never a um never something that I thought possible for me at times, you know.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

You you mentioned uh the earlier on in life you you let yourself down a lot. What what do you mean by that, mate?

Quitting, Fear, And The Mask

SPEAKER_01 4:13

I was a quitter. I and I don't know why. I had a very good upbringing, I have you know fantastic parents, um, very supportive family, but I have always felt on the outside, and I've always tried to find where I fit, and it's didn't really fit in at school. I was sporty, not particularly academic, struggled with attention that maybe came out a little bit later as well. Um and I've always been very sociable, very interested in other people, very interested in in a number of different things, but never really felt like I belonged anywhere. And it's like I said in in my intro, I've I've gone through many different industries and and experiences trying to find my people and where I fit and how do I connect with people, how do I How do I position myself in the world and I just didn't know. That's what I said by uh letting myself down I struggled with drink stimulants, I was scrappy growing up and it was all from fear. I was just a fearful young man that didn't know where I fitted, and and so that I would play up to that and I'd be the class clown and I would be impulsive and hedonistic and I had no purpose, no mission, I didn't know who I was, I didn't talk to myself very well and um it took me a long time to understand who I was because I'd put on a character and I'd I'd built this character up, I wore my armour and I showed the world what that needed to be because I had no self-worth and so I wouldn't show the real me, I would just show the character that that that person needed to be, and that took a long time to break down, really long time to break down, but I managed it, and there wasn't one set definitive moment, there was a series of moments that helped to break that down.

Afghanistan, Hornets, And Near Death

SPEAKER_01 7:17

So I eventually joined the army in can't remember the year now, I was 19 and deployed to uh Afghanistan in 2011 on Hereg 14, and I was on a roof in a firefight in a compound that we just recently moved into and was engaged in a fairly spicy contact, and like I said, we'd recently moved into the area, hadn't cleared the compound up effectively. So I got on the radio and I was asking for some sandbags to build up my my little defensive area on top of this roof because I was quite exposed. So as my Oppo climbed up the ladder, threw some sandbags down and then got back to got back to business, we'd inadvertently disturbed a hornet's nest. So I got swarmed by some aggressive hornets. Actual hornets and actual hornets, real actual hornets, yeah. And so I took one on my nose, one in my nose, one in my mouth, one on my throat, uh one on my wrist. I think it was five in total. Um didn't really know what was going on, I had other things occupying my um my cognitive load at that point, so I rolled off the the roof, landed in a pile, moved around the corner, and there was a there was an opening in in the wall, so that became my new my new vantage point. Again, I I don't know timing-wise how long it it was between this, it's a little bit hazy now since the distance that it's occurred. But I went blind, my throat closed up, and I had an unbelievable urgency to rip my boots off because my feet had this incredible itch that I could not satisfy. Uh so I sat down, I had my body armor taken off, had medics come over, and I was going into anaphylactic shock. I had a couple of shots of adrenaline at the time, which relatively unsuccessful. I they attempted to intubate me, which failed at the time, and was then going to be Casivax. Uh the Brits refused because of the hot HLS. So uh the Yanks came and got me, I was on a put on a Pedro and flowing back to Bastion. Again, I don't remember the flight, I just remember being pissed off that these power jumpers were trying to keep me awake when I I did not want to be awake. Um but I'm I'm I'm very glad that they did. I remember landing, going through the double doors at Bastion Hospital, and then uh seeing a poster on the wall with a friend of mine who had uh was involved in an ID a couple of months before, and his his face was peppered with sc with with scars, apart from these two perfect white circles around his eyes where he'd w worn his uh his goggles and that's what saved his vision. So I remember seeing his his face on the wall and then an unbelievable urge to breathe and there being no breath to take, and then a darkness that was awe-consuming and and that is it that is all I remember for dunno. Uh so I was put into an induced coma eventually, um and I remember coming round not understanding where I am, what's going on, but being able to write notes. And so I was writing notes, and when you're in intensive care at Bastion, they would keep it, they would keep a log of uh your ICU notes of what was going on, and apparently this should not have been happening for the amount of sedation I was under. Uh so I think they kept kind of like jacking some more um medication into me. And then I was woken up to take a flight back to the UK, and my QM at the time came in to speak to me uh with the CO.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

And the CO left and the QM stayed, and I bawled my eyes out, and so did he.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

And at 21, which I was at the time, was the first time that I had any emotion And that was the kind of catalyst of I am not this character that I'd built.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

I am still human It wasn't enough to completely break the character, but it was the that was the first bit where I'd gone, actually, there is a bit of humanity in me deep down and I cried because I had to go back home that I wasn't going to stay in theatre with the team that I was with, and I had that unbelievable like survivor's guilt e right from that very moment that why me?

Discharge, Reinvention, And Overwork

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Why am I going home where largely I'm okay but other people don't and that was that was a difficult realisation to make and so fast forward three months I learned to speak again and could communicate more effectively uh through a scratched up vocal cords. Um and so I had to then build a new character because my character was not young, infantier, hard charging, wanted to tackle the world, I had to create a new identity, and so I then transformed myself into this new character that I thought I was going to be, and this was uh as a physical training instructor, and so I had a very good boss at the time who, although we knew that eventually I was gonna be medically discharged as a result of this, I was it was at the time where the military was downsizing, so there was a threat that I would uh that this was no longer gonna be my career, which I thought at the time it was. So I was allowed to go on my PTI cutter and fully immerse myself. I am a fully all or nothing, and so I would do the course, I'd spend my evenings researching different threads and taught myself how to digest scientific papers, got as many different books, articles, journals, everything that I could to just fully immerse myself into this world, and it was a great distraction. I loved it, it was it became my new being, um, which then led me into coaching and and understanding how to get the most out of people. But again, looking back, it was just a character of who I needed to be, and if I I can't help myself, but I can help other people, and so it just became this outward facing thing of I need to be, I need to have the most knowledge, I have to have the most experience, I have to have, I need to be the go-to. And through being the go-to allowed me to mask again of who I really was because now I could hide behind this SMI like character that that I wanted to be. And that got me through another another bit. I was eventually medically discharged in September of 2013, and um then really started to double down on this character because I'd had to give a funeral to the old character, and I had to really immerse myself into this new one if I was to be believable, and so I when I knew that I was going to be medically discharged, and I had to be become this new character, that kind of spurred me on even more to mask as much as I can, and so I invested heavily in courses. I would spend every weekend that I could traveling up and down the country getting new information and talking with these expert SNC coaches and thought leaders and seminars and workshops, and it was it was great because it was all consuming for me, massive dopamine hit, it was it was fantastic, but it was just a way of me hiding again, and so when I transitioned out and I was fully invested in this character, I invested into a brick and mortar gym back in back in Birmingham. Again, I loved it because I could throw myself into it. I was then at held a director level in this gym, and so I had ownership and responsibility, and I I had um I had an audience of people that saw this performance coaching experience that that they were in, and it was great for me that I could show them this this character because they wouldn't actually see the real me down below. But then the cracks started appear because I was so busy, so immersed, so uh time heavy in the business and running the coaching and and and and being that that expert I didn't use that term lightly but I won a competition to win a free cruise. And I hadn't been away on holiday for a number of years, over a decade. And I invited a friend of mine along, the same guy who I'd seen in Bastion Hospital with the poster on the wall. So I contacted him, I said, Look, I've been I've I've won this this prize to get on a cruise. Do you want to do it with me? And he said yes. So we set sail from Southampton Went on to the top deck of this cruise and it was around um France and then uh the Channel Islands and it and then back again.

The Cruise That Exposed Silence

SPEAKER_01 19:50

And we sat on this top deck sailing out of Southampton And it was the first time it was quiet. No one know no one knew who I was no one was interested in what I was doing and there was no one talking to us, asking us questions and I didn't like that quiet. Really didn't like that quiet and on that nine-day experience to be fair to both of us, but particularly me, I started to recognise that maybe I don't see the world the same way that everyone else does. Maybe maybe there is something not quite right and that was the the kind of second wake-up call, if you like, that there was more to life than pretending. And that then started my journey of actual self-discovery. I decided at that point that enough was enough and no more masking, no more pretending anymore. I needed to be vulnerable, I needed to experience life, and so I got a tattoo on each of my wrists in Spanish. Obviously, because that was one of the that was one of the countries we visited that says live more and love more, and that was my constant reminder every time I looked at my hands to live by that code, and it was the most important thing that I've ever done. And it was not easy, and I tried many different uh ways to achieve that. I've done all sorts of different types of Of talk therapy, um sauna, breath work, cold uh immersion, plant medicine, um journaling, courses, understanding, but this time around it wasn't to mask, it was to strip away the layers. It was to understand why do I think the way I do, why do I act the way that I do? Who are who am I? What am I trying to be? What is my identity? Who are you when you're not putting on a performance? When you're not putting on a uniform and there were some real tough moments holding up a mirror and you know really diving into what makes you tick was not an easy thing.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

But it saved me There's quite a lot there, mate. So

Survivor’s Guilt, Purpose, And Love

SPEAKER_04 23:12

thanks for sharing that. I've got so many questions, but I think the one that leaps out at me at the moment is is how do you answer that question today from where you sat as in as in why me in terms of of leaving? How does that how do you answer that today?

SPEAKER_01 23:45

The story isn't written yet Everyone is on their own journey and I had I had no control over my life as when I was younger. I had no agency because I had no self-awareness. I wasn't present at all in what I was doing. And what eventually made me come to terms with that survivor's guilt was an understanding that if you can find your purpose, if you can find your why, if you can find the real you beneath it all then you have worth once you start to love yourself It's all The answer's always love It is Because I had no Because I didn't love myself, I didn't like myself at all, I didn't have any I had no feelings towards myself there was Then I could sit in that hospital bed and wish that I'd taken the place of someone else and I could go back out and they could live and I and I wouldn't it was only because I didn't love myself and eventually once I started to have a relationship with my younger self and be kinder to that young boy then I eventually started to recognise that I did have value and that I do deserve to be here and I did deserve that second chance and I should not waste it because then I would be doing a disservice to those people that weren't able to return home to their family.

SPEAKER_04 26:11

Yeah, it's it's it's it's so interesting, mate, and there's so many different levels there, and and and for me, I I I can't help but think that our why our purpose is already there, there's nothing to find. I think that I would have said once upon a time it because then it sounds like it's outside of us for me. Really, what I'm hearing is for myself is by the way, when I answer that question, why me, and regardless of whatever it's there's there's an acceptance, it doesn't necessarily mean we have to like what's going on or gone on, then there's a certain level of presence, and I believe then then we can take agency because then we get to choose how we respond rather than than than react there.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Um I remember talking a lot in in various different therapy guises of I want to fix what do I need to do to fix this? How do I like there is clearly a problem? Give me the solution, I will execute that solution, done. V2, mate. And it took me such a long time to figure out, I think you put it perfectly there, acceptance is the key. There is you can't you can't, it's just understanding, acceptance, and presence, and it's very easy to talk about, very difficult to do.

SPEAKER_04 27:37

Yeah. I've I've got uh idea for a thread in that a bit, but I'm I'm I'm curious, Ben, with there's so many how you speak, the way you speak in your story resonates on so many different levels. There's lots of parallels in in my story and and lots of similar similar similarities um in the people I work with and and in myself as well. But I'm curious just to go back a bit right to the beginning with such a varied career. I I can you condense down like a learning or a thread or an experience that that you've taken from each one of those different theatres that you've been in from the military, SNC, close protection, rescue, and the fire service that that that that you live by now or that you that you teach, even if it's just by through who you're being.

Lead Yourself First As A Standard

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Yeah, and I I try not to make it very cliche, but lead yourself first. That is the number one thread that I have that I now follow through because I wasn't able to do it before. And lead yourself first, but what I mean by that is take responsibility, take ownership, be present, be who your kids want you to be. And the most important and why I say that is I think that thread is pertinent through every single uh high pressure environment that I have been in. And so in early on it was because I couldn't lead myself, because I didn't know who I was. As I started to gain more awareness, and I was able to detach from being overwhelmed in in scenarios and in in the area that I was in, when I was able to detach, I would see other it's in other people that they weren't able to lead themselves, that they were reactive, that they were performing just as much as as I was.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

But the m the most successful people that I've ever come across were excellent at leading themselves first. They had this self-confidence, this inner calmness, this awareness, this presence, this aura.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

And they weren't relying on anyone else to provide that for them. There was no external validation, it was this internal calm confident love, and that comes from various different things, but this this competence around who you are, what you're doing, that was a thread that that I picked up all along the way, and I met some incredible leaders that are just so composed, so calm, so collected, and because they could lead themselves, they were then able to lead other people, and that calm, infectious nature would spread like wildfire, and that was so enticing to be a part of, and then when you see the opposite done, and it's reactive and it's flashing, and it's very egotistical, and it's it's very fiery, that then becomes a big of a red red flag for me, and so I've got this like colour chart going on in my head of this calm, cool waters, and then the the fiery ego-driven alternative, and because that was me, I feel it very personally of I'm I don't want to go back there. I love who I am now, I love the journey that I'm on, and I'm not saying that I'm complete. That's another title I have, I'm complete but not finished because that was there, that is the big scary wolf that I'm running away from, and this calm understanding, this clear of thought, concise leader of yourself. Oh that's that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 32:44

So help paint uh a picture for us and what that really looks like, both from yeah, an individual, like daily practical things in terms of leading yourself first. And I mean you touched on some of the higher level stuff there, but if that resonates for people and they're they're curious what that that that looks. I'm curious what's your experience in like leading yourself first. Will that really mean day to day, be it at work or at home?

Self-Mastery Through Presence And Systems

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Uh so obviously it's going to change for each individual. And I really enjoy the term self-mastery. Now, in the personal development space, I think there is this concern of over-optimization, and you come like uh paralysis through analysis, and you're trying to level up so much that you become overwhelming. If you do the fundamentals unbelievably well, you will master your self, your life. And that doesn't mean investing all your money on the fanciest technology. It is being fully present, living in the moment, making the most of whatever the situation, the scenario that you have right now, whether you're washing the dishes, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're taking your kids to school, whatever the scenario you are in right now, be fully present and make the absolute most of that, and then move on to the next task. And be the most present and enjoyful and curious and interested in that moment, and then move on to the next task. That I think if you can get to that point, you're doing pretty well.

SPEAKER_04 34:50

And I guess with most things, it's it's it's a reminder to myself that that's a practice on some days, it looks different, even if it's the same.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

But one of the yeah, and it fluctuates as well, doesn't it? And you know, and and life is gonna throw curveballs. But there's always an answer. So let's let's take martial arts for example. There is no one technique, lock, hold, choke, etc., that is the pinnacle because you just do that one thing every time and then you you'd be undefeatable. It doesn't exist. There is always a way out, there is always an escape, there is always an alternative route that you can take. You just gotta find that. But if you're if events happen to you and you're not present, you're not aware, you're not able to detach, you're not gonna find the way out.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

One of the things that that my I'm curious to learn about you, Ben, is given once again those those changes in career paths and and some quite varied there, as well as the daily transitions between husband, father, business owner, martial arts, consultant. Um how how do you manage those the the the cap changes, the transitions there for yourself?

SPEAKER_01 36:24

I'm very uhware of it now. So I like I said I wear very I wear many different hats on a day-to-day basis. And linking back what I what I said just a minute ago, I try not to worry about what's to come because I might not reach that yet. So I'm quite systems-based. I I really enjoy a system I don't like, um it allows me to be more present and be more aware because I don't have to worry about remembering things, I don't have to worry about making sure my ad I'm on top of my admin because I've got a time block for that, which allows me to free up that mental bandwidth to tackle whatever it is that I'm doing right now. And so I circle back to the terminology of discipline, and I think discipline gets uh misconstrued, misinterpreted, and it's it's now seen as like punishing yourself. The more disciplined you are, the more you're gonna wake up at 3 a.m. and do 500 burpees and then get back into bed. It and for me it's not that at all. Being disciplined is doing the things that you know you should do, removing the emotion, removing the thought process behind it, because that frees your mental bandwidth to be able to be completely present in that moment. So if you're taking your kids to the park and you haven't prepped for the meeting, you've got, you haven't completed the project, you've got five tabs open on your laptop of incomplete work. Well, you're never going to be able to be present with your kids at that park because you've got this nagging, you haven't done that, you haven't done that, you haven't done that. So having these systems in place, blocking out that time, and being able to be completely I'm here right now, and I will do this as good as I can do, that has then freed up so much more of my time and my energy and allows me to operate at a level that I feel is getting me closer to competency. Does that answer your thing?

SPEAKER_04 39:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and it never has to, I in the sense of there's no right or wrong, it's yeah, it's interpretation, yeah, and uh you're a chance to chance to chance to explore that, and but it's just it's interesting what comes up for me there. Discipline is I read a book a few months ago, No Drama Discipline. Um I forget the author's name now, but she's also written The Whole Brain Child, and yeah, it talks about discipline being I'm pretty sure the stem of the word that the origin of the word is for like around discipleship teaching. And so yeah, I'm I've my mind was going, How do I yeah? So, if discipline is that what is it teaching me? So, what I'm hearing there is if I've got all these tabs, be them mental or physical, open, then it's teaching me that yeah, I need to or I get to close this out if I want to. I can't do both. Um, what is this teaching me?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, I like the the the theory about there is no such thing as multitasking, you're just task switching, and some people can task switch faster than other people. That's great if people operate that way. That's just not the way that that I do. I have to open it, close it, move on to the next thing. I do not I don't like long-term projects, that clouds my my judgment there. I find that difficult, so I will break that year-long project into a week task, day task, hourly task, 10-minute task. And so my chunking and that has allowed me to break down these overwhelming tasks into much more manageable pieces and then give me that full presence. Like, I don't need to worry about the meeting at the end of this project because writing this paragraph is the most important thing. Once that's done, tick it off. On to the next one.

SPEAKER_04 41:08

I can tell. Uh there's a whiteboard in the background as well for not knowing. I I'm again my I my curiosity is pulled back towards the beginning of the interview around belonging um and fitting in, and I'm I'm curious how that sits with you today, like the the difference between the two there and how you answer that for yourself.

Finding Belonging In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

SPEAKER_01 41:35

I'm going to answer that through martial arts because particularly grappling, so I I'm a big fan of a Brazilian jiu-jitsu and I'm into my ninth year of practicing. Now I started my martial arts career in striking disciplines, started off at boxing and then moved into uh white eye, JKD. Uh it was all very five foot six, little man aggressive syndrome type efforts, and I've had several concussions, I had seven concussions before the age of twenty, and so there is a decline in my um cognitive ability that I need to monitor. Um when I was coming out of the back end of this journey and I was starting to understand who I was, and I needed to find something that would allow me to be a perpetual student that will always humble me, that will I will never be able to reach the summit. I came to jujitsu, and then that's not to say that I could master other sports, but I was at a point in my career where I was pretty good, and a level of mastery came from repeating the same tasks just more efficiently, and I needed something more than that, and so I started to look down the line of what I would term is spiritual sports, a sport where you can reach a point of flow state, and that's from there's many different like skating, surfing, something where you are reliant on mastery of movement against either Mother Nature or another organic being. I gave surfing a go and um it didn't end well for me. I had another concussion from a very poorly timed uh stand-up. So I was like, right, okay, I need to protect my brain as much as I can here. So I then came into uh grappling sports and I settled on uh Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and I have really found my tribe because it is so difficult. So we we run an early morning class, and before the world has woken up, you stick on your pajamas, you slap hands with with someone, and they are trying to kill you in the nicest possible way. And you have to breathe, you have to relax, you have to be in charge of your emotions, you have to slow the world down and focus only on this task right now, with this gorilla trying to rip my head off. But there is a way out, I've just got to find it. And the more layers you go down, the more you realize that this becomes a conversation with someone, it's a movement conversation, you're trying to outsmart them, you're trying misdirection, you're trying, you're gonna connect, you're gonna disconnect, you're gonna apply base posture pressure, connection with this other fully resisting opponent. Then you have a shower and you go go about your day, and it washes off the residual stress of yesterday and sets you up for success today.

SPEAKER_04 45:56

Yeah, I think it's so like so many things, there's a potential to hide within it as well, though. But I'm curious if you get to a certain level where there is nowhere to hide, or certain things continue continually happen, injury, um being one, for example. And I and I think a great reminder there to myself as I listen to you talk is that around the expectation of time, and there might be a way out, and it might not find it for a couple of days, weeks, or even months. So if I can't change that, what can I change? Well, it's it's my expectation, the way that I'm showing up.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

And that's gonna be different for everyone because what is your measurement of success? And that's gonna change.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

I mate, I'm gonna go there.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Right now, what's my success?

SPEAKER_04 46:55

Yeah,

Measuring Success By The Moment

SPEAKER_04 46:56

exactly. What what what is how do you measure measure success, Ben, nowadays for me personally, my measurement of success is on how well am I executing my immediate task.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Because I have this ingrained propensity to ruminate on what's happened before, I have to be very present in being more like my dog. My dog doesn't care what happened two minutes ago, he is unbelievably happy to see me right now, and that's the only thing that matters to him. And because I I do I I understand what now I'm on this path, I'm on this path of self-discovery, and I do have this dark cloud, I have this constant nag, this tr this like dark pull that wants to take me back where I don't want to go. I need to be very present, what I'm doing, be very mindful, how am I eating, how am I sleeping, how am I interacting, how am I communicating, how am I showing up. If I can stay present and not worry about what's happened before, what's coming up, that's a successful day. Outcomes outcomes mean mean nothing. I'll get there eventually. But if I can turn up and be present every day, that's a successful day.

SPEAKER_04 48:46

Love it, man. Love it.

Closing Thoughts And Next Conversation

SPEAKER_04 48:49

Ben, I'm I'm I'm wondering if there's anything that we've not talked about that you'd like to mention as we start to to wind this up for today.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

No, uh where my head went was what the future looks like. But we might never make it. So I think where we've got to is perfect for the right now. And uh maybe let's make a plan to do another one.

SPEAKER_04 49:24

Done deal, mate. Uh I yeah, I couldn't help write the last words of the the dark pool. Um sounds like a good starting point for a school, mate. Ben, um yeah, I want to thank you for taking time out of your day to share part of your story, mate, part of your learnings. Um, yeah, the message of of coming back to love so so powerful, so uh overlooked and so misunderstood. Um, so thanks for being who you're being for for myself and so many others, mate. Um yeah, it's been a pleasure to speak to you today. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Honestly, the pleasure is all mine, my friend, and thank you for holding space to be able to have these kind of uh conversations that scratch below the surface.

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Awesome, lots of love, Ben. Speak soon.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Love you, bye, buddy.