Speaker: One of the first things

that happened was I went to a pub and

got in a fight for being Scottish.

It, it generally was that, it was,

it was this kinda, somebody heard

the accent and immediately said,

oh, you think you're a hard man?

And in doing so, I knocked my own head

torch off and it landed at my feet.

So I bent down, picked the head

torch off, and as I've picked it

up, it's flipped and I've realised

that, that half my feet are hanging

off a a she drop did, did the x-ray.

It's not the NHS.

He came back 10 minutes

later with results.

He said, this man is very unwell.

We going to, you can't even take him away.

And he showed me and one of my

lungs was completely full of fluid.

Speaker 2: Guys, welcome back

to the Combat Fuel Podcast.

Today we are with just Johnny.

Johnny is.

Mad, and I wanna say mad by, please

introduce yourself and tell us like one

of the most wild things you've done,

one of the most wild events you've done.

Speaker: Well, not an event in of itself,

but I guess the hardest thing I've done

that I'm still having nightmares about

is the the vertical marathon we tried

in 2020 and I eventually succeeded on

the second time around 2024, where I

claimed Ben Nevis 32 consecutive times,

stayed on the mountain, didn't come

off the mountain, self-sufficient.

So that was 14, 15 days,

sorry, of just constant graphs,

sometimes three times up and down.

That that was brutal.

Brutal.

In about 40 different ways.

Speaker 2: I think that's a pretty

good introduction to what we're

gonna get into, like marathon,

whatever, vertical marathon.

Yeah, it's, it's mad.

Speaker: It, it was a concept not mine.

Ex-business partner came up with the idea.

And like I say, we had the

stupid plan of doing it on Nevis.

It seemed dramatic.

It seemed like, it seemed like a crazy

thing to do, you know, into the idea.

And, and we went out there and

we practised, did it two or three

times over a couple of triples in,

in training and felt confident.

And then, then the reality hit at first

time, I was really, really brutal.

Second time was more brutal

because I did it more times, but

it was yeah, it was a bad idea,

Speaker 2: but you completed it.

And I don't think there's many

people that can say they've

completed a vertical marathon.

Speaker: Well, no, here's the thing.

During the vertical marathon, we found

out that because there'd been no coverage

or press about it, there was a chap in,

I wanna say wheels who had done one,

but he'd done one on, on a kind of a

grassy knoll at the back o over the

course of, I dunno, a long, a long time.

And I messaged him because at the time

I was saying, this is the world's first.

Nobody's ever done this

before, and all the rest of it.

And then got wind of that.

So I messaged him to say, listen, I've

been making these claims, I wasn't

aware that you've done it before.

And, and he messaged back to

say, I didn't do it on Nevis,

you lunatic, get on with it.

Very nice guy.

So it had been done before.

Yeah.

The concept had been thought of, I

dunno whether he'd done that after we'd

thought of it the first time round.

But some somebody had done it, but

nobody had done it within those

conditions on a mountain and all that.

So, so halfway through the campaign, if

you, if you go back, and I don't suggest

anybody does that this, but if you went

back through the campaign, you can see

that we changed the wording ever so

slightly to see the first mountain beast.

And we're very clear about the fact that

this now was no longer in that sense of,

well, first, but it's still a world record

because the the conditions were insane.

Speaker 2: And I think like a key bit

takeaway from that is like integrity.

You know, you, you could have gone on

saying like the world's first and that

little key bit of information there

that, you know, you went and gave credit

where credit was due to someone else.

Even it's like, haven't done it

up a mountain in your lunatic.

Is that, I think that speaks

a lot about you as a person.

Speaker: And, and, and the other guy,

because he could very well have been,

he, he didn't make any contact with me.

It was somebody kinda trying

to sabotage it a little bit.

P that through, you're not the first

you, you fraud or something like that.

And I'm like, whoa.

This is news to me, so I'm, you

Speaker 2: dunno what you don't know.

Speaker: No, exactly.

And, and it wasn't like we hadn't

researched it and I kinda had a

thought, think about it beforehand.

It just wasn't there.

It was, it was there had been an

article on it in a local paper

somewhere, and that was it.

So, you know, I'd have to troll through

various local papers to find that, but

he was so graceful a, a, a about it.

And because he could have been like,

yeah, he'd been saying all these things

and treading them out, you know, and

he wasn't, he was very acutely aware

that it was a very different challenge.

You know, the title was the same

and all the rest of it, but, you

know, credit to to, to that guy.

He, he was very cool about it.

Speaker 2: And that's and

that's one of a plethora of.

Challenges.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: You've done, and

we'll, we'll get onto some little

more, but let's, let's rewind

like to back to your childhood,

like where, where were you born?

Where did you grow up?

Speaker: Born and bred

in a place called Zo.

For my accent, it's T-H-U-R-S-O not Zo.

And it's the most northern town

in, in the Hall of Britain.

You can't go any further than

that without falling off the edge.

So that in itself probably describes

the nature of the place ness.

Is is a kind of a, a relatively empty,

I wanna say barren, but that'd be

offensive to, to, to my Ken's folk.

But there's not a lot there.

So I grew up in, in an area

where it was a very small town.

I think there's only

5,000 people there now.

May, maybe a few more at that point.

Local industry was dune Ray,

which is the, the nuclear site.

There.

There's a military presence

there that isn't talked about

all that much, but it's there.

And then there are fishing and,

and, and various other industries,

but a very small area, which meant

there's not much to do with the kids.

So we we just caused as

much hassle as we could.

Speaker 2: How, how was

your childhood an upbringing

Speaker: standard?

Very good.

Nothing, nothing crazy to kinda

write home about or anything.

We because there isn't anything to do.

The, the main standout for us I

say there isn't anything to do.

There clearly is every kid everywhere

says that there's nothing to do,

but stand out in street corners.

And of course, the, the, there is,

but the resources were less up there.

But we got into TH's,

actually a mecca for surfing.

Like, genuinely, it's like people

come from all over the world.

The world championships have been held

there because there's a, a particular

reef at Thurso East where the, where the,

the, the rocks and the way the water comes

in through Scapa flow, et cetera, makes

this great surfing paradise for people.

Well, it's not a paradise, it's

fucking freezing, but it's, it's,

it's a place where people do

come and visit for that purpose.

So we grew up with surfing as a

kind of a, a background culture.

I hated surfing.

I don't like the water very much.

And, and when I tried, I

wasn't very good at it.

But as a kind of a, an adjunct to that

skateboarding up there was, was kind

of a, a little thing we had going on,

and I became a very, very do see, so

myself, very good skateboarder very kinda

one of these young fearless idiot kids

that would jump off anything and stuff.

Yeah.

So, so that was life for me up there

with, with skating and, and loved

to be still love it, skate or die

Speaker 2: like that.

It's I mean, we've gotta ask you then,

like when, this is like a personal

question, like when the Tony Hawke pro

skater came out, how did you view him?

Because he was like, he was a

legend in my eyes growing up.

Speaker: Well, see, the

thing is with Tony Hot.

He, he's still a legend,

still an absolute legend.

But Tony Hawk pro skater came around.

This is the, we, we've joked three times

to the off camera about my age, mate.

Tony Hawk was, is, is my age.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: You know, when, when, when

he was first skating to, to see who

he was, he had to buy videotapes.

And where we were in Zo to, to

get videotape or a skate magazine

or anything, you didn't just

go down the shop and buy it.

You didn't sell it.

You had to order it in.

It takes six weeks to arrive.

So you had to know about it in

the first place, which meant

somebody must have had to go down

to Glasgow or something like that.

My very good friend

Tommy God rest his soul.

He's, he's passed on, he actually

had leukaemia and he travelled down

to Glasgow for, for hospital visits.

And then when he was let at hospital to

go and visit the skate stores and the

record shops and all the rest, and he'd

come back with all this new information.

So we had a insight into what

was going on through Tommy.

We discovered Tony Hawk and

videos like public domain.

So he was a hero to me well

before that came along.

So when that came along, we

kind of thought he'd sold out.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Everybody else

is like, who's this guy?

What's this thing?

And it was a mad big thing.

They're like, oh, you know, fuck that.

That's not skating.

That's bullshit.

You know?

And that actually was a

strange cultural crossroads.

I, I still love skating, but

it's a very different thing now.

It used to be a subculture, almost

kind of punk thing where if you

were a skater, you were a bit of a

scumbag, which we liked, you know?

Yeah.

And it, it's kinda cool to be that way.

And it was, like I say, it was a

subculture thing, whereas now it's

very, very, there's still that among

in about it in, in certain pockets, but

for the most part, it's mainstream now.

Yeah.

And Tony Hawk did that.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker: I'm not sure

whether that's a good thing.

That, it's a great thing.

It's, it's a great thing for, it's

in the Olympics and all and stuff.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, but,

Speaker: but you've got like eight

year olds doing tricks that, that,

that we couldn't even dream of.

Yeah.

Because we had to send away, get

a magazine, look at the sequential

pictures and try and learn it.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Whereas they're on

YouTube, they're seeing it.

It's everywhere.

Speaker 2: The availability of

information to be like that now is

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

It, it is crazy.

Speaker: And it normalises being

able to do those tricks and having

that kind of understanding, which

has been really cool to see.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And I'm still, I

still skate now and again, you

know, I still go out there and

Speaker 2: ask, do you still skate?

Speaker: I do.

I, I, I'm, I'm afraid

'cause I've got a bad knee.

And I'm afraid 'cause I'm, I'm an old

man and I'm afraid because I haven't

practised enough, but I still go out

there and if I skate for a few days

I, I feel like I can skate again.

But every time I jump on I shit myself.

Speaker 2: When I was young, I

thought, I wanna be a skater boy.

Tony Haw, pro skater came out

and I was like, cover that.

I was just a board with wheels.

So obviously I went straight up to

a massive ramp and I, and there was

guys there and I just watched 'em,

like with a bending in their knees and

just like, just standing on a board.

That'll be absolutely fine.

Looks easy.

Got to the end, stood in, it went down.

I went down and then I went like.

That and I smashed my face up real bad

and I was like, skate your name for me.

Speaker: That's kinda what happened

when we were surfing, I jumped in the

water, jumped on the, on on the board,

swimming out to catch the waves, being

told that you swim through them, swim

through them, and I threw the board

over a wave, but the wave jumped up when

that fucking threw it right back at me,

caught me in the ear and knocked me out.

Oh.

And I went under and got caught.

It's only quite close to the shore, but

heavyweights got caught in a little,

kinda a washing machine, spat out,

immediately went like, fuck surfing.

That's, that's somebody else.

Was that you

Speaker 2: like Matt

Speaker: was

Speaker 2: not that surfing Stu.

Speaker: I was.

I remember being in my mate's bath

afterwards because it was cold as hell

in a wetsuit just sitting there almost

in tears, just going surfing shit.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: There's, there's sharks.

Like you guys are getting a sea

and you can't see the bottom.

Like, have you watch jaws?

Like Yeah.

Have

Speaker: you

Speaker 2: see what the

Speaker: risks

Speaker 2: are?

I was a good swimmer as well growing

up, and I'm petrified of the sea.

Oh, I can't see the v na, that's like

jumping out of aeroplanes and stuff like.

No, no, thank you.

I'm quite happy too.

But how was your relationship

with your parents growing up?

Speaker: Good.

Yeah.

Good.

Yeah.

Every so often the question

comes up, who's your hero?

My dad's still my hero.

He, he's, we were very, very lucky mate

to be brought up with an active, strong,

you know, when you look up we have these

conversations all the time now, don't we?

This, there's what should a

man be and all the rest of it.

And my dad still ticks

all those boxes still.

He's still a very strong, capable guy.

He was part of the scouting

organisation and eventually

became the scouting commissioner

for a massive area of Scotland.

Never would boast about it or

anything like that, but, but very

kind of important in scouting.

So we were brought up in that

organisation, which meant we

didn't have a lot of money.

So all our holidays were camping

and outdoors up mountains outdoors

and kind of survival stuff.

And, and that's still the kind

things that, that's in me, a little

bit of a teenage kinda drift where

drinking and drugs were, were the

only things that were of interest.

And then eventually came

back to it because it was

just in imprinted, you know?

And that's, that's my dad.

That's brilliant.

Yeah.

And, and my mom she's, she's

passed away now, which breaks my

heart every time I think about it.

She, she was wonderful, scary

little glaswegian woman with with

a fierce, protective love for us.

There's four of us.

I've got a brother and two sisters,

and, and she was fiercely as you would

expect from a little glaswegian mother.

She was just,

Speaker 2: yeah,

Speaker: stereotypically that.

So yeah, very, very lucky to have had

a, a really strong family upbringing,

Speaker 2: Sport.

Has sport always been a, a thing for you?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well into your fighting.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Lots of different variations.

Did that start at a young age as well?

Speaker: Fighting did, but not,

not for particularly good reasons.

So I played football.

I was a good footballer really

good when we grew up in but around

about 12, my dad worked for the

MLD, so we was sent to flan.

We, so we moved to Helensburgh

Speaker 2: yeah, you

Speaker: probably know the area.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Lived there for quite

a while, ever for four years.

When I was there, I was involved

with football really quite heavily

and, and did really well, really,

really good football player.

But if I do say this somewhere,

so, but then we moved back

to Zo and that kid drifted.

There wasn't, there wasn't the,

the infrastructure up there.

And actually one thing which I see in

my boys actually if there is a positive

way to say this, I'm not sure how to say

it, but I'm not a very good team player.

What I mean by that is that I prefer

sports where, where the, the onus is on

me to complete what I need to complete.

If, if you, if I didn't like being

frustrated with other people or other

people being frustrated with me for,

for things that were outside of my

control and I see that my biggest

boy can see that in him as well.

So fight sports became a good bit

later, but anything that was, was,

what's the word I'm looking for?

Self-sufficient, or, or, or, or on

me, as I say, was much more appealing.

'cause then if I failed,

that was on me too.

I could, I could own that, you know?

So,

Speaker 2: and where did you

start with your, your fighting?

That was done as sport, not for fun.

Speaker: So that was an

interesting thing as well.

So I moved to, jumping forward

a little bit down to Nottingham.

I lived in Glasgow for a long time.

I moved home early because there,

as I say, was a, a place most kids

kinda wanted to get away from.

So I enrolled in a arbitrary

college course, which was just an

opportunity to go went to Glasgow.

I think I turned up twice to that course,

did relatively well at it, but it still

didn't turn out much, drank a lot.

And I, I was a musician and,

and played in a lot of bands.

And so I was moving to Bristol to be

in a band close, close enough to here.

Really.

That went tits because of

my temper, which is bad.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: So, so I didn't

actually get to Bristol.

I was in, in a phone box, told,

don't, don't come to Bristol.

Your little prick.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: But we had all this stuff

backed up in the van, myself and

my girlfriend at the time and

her mom was living in Nottingham.

So we thought, well, we'll

go to Nottingham, we'll stay

there, reset, then maybe get to

Bristol in 12 years after that.

I didn't get to Bristol.

So it was a very long answer to your

question is when I was there, one of the

first things that happened was I went to a

pub and got in a fight for being Scottish.

It generally was that.

It was, it was this kinda

Somebody heard the accent.

Yeah.

And they said, oh, you

think you're a harm man?

Do you know?

I don't.

I literally asked for a pint.

No, but it became a kind of a set two.

And, and I, I won that fight which

meant the next day when I went

into the pub, another guy come

down to, to enact his revenge.

I won that fight and eventually got

a bit of a reputation, fell in with

certain people and all the rest of it.

And then we, we were doing, at the time,

there wasn't such a thing as MME no holds.

Barr would be the closest we called it.

But people didn't have these

set full set of skills.

You were either a standup guy or, or

you know, a, a mutai guy or a boxer,

or just a streetfighter, whichever,

whatever the hell that really is.

Speaker 2: But in jut Jiujitsu

wasn't really a thing either.

But then was it?

Speaker: No, it wasn't.

But that, that, that was the interesting

turnaround where I stopped doing

it for a little bit of money and

a little bit of readiness and, and

just being a bit of an ars asshole.

And, and, and a lot of these things were

in the, you know, in little pub downstairs

rooms, you know, and it was, it was.

Well, if it was a, it was underground.

Yeah.

You know, or just sort of in, amongst a, a

Baylor Hayes or something, and you, you're

on a, a campsite somewhere or whatever.

But I fought a guy who came in

and, and ran up my leg, like a

little monkey, like a little rat.

I was like, what the fuck is he doing?

You know?

And I, I wasn't particularly skilled Yeah.

Or, or skilled at all.

I was just game and this kid I, I

was little but 65 kilos and weight

classes weren't really a thing.

But this, this guy was

much smaller than me.

So obviously in my head it was

just, oh, I'll just panel him.

That'll be easy.

Yeah.

And within about 15 seconds, he

was doing something to my arm

that I couldn't understand at all.

I didn't know to tap, but he knew

to stop, so he didn't break my arm.

The fight was over and that's

where I discovered Juujitsu because

this little, this little crazy

Who was giggling the whole time.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: I said to him afterwards,

what the fuck was that?

And he is, is I juujitsu, I dunno

if he was Brazilian or not, but he

actually said, which was great to hear.

Yeah.

Juujitsu.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

I said, is it, what's a juujitsu?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And then I found some clubs

and got into kind of adjunct to that.

There was a little bit of

criminality in, in my life.

I was moving with, with some people.

That is what it is.

And we, we were always, we, we were

in kind little kinda tough wars and

gang fights and things, and I was,

I was aware, I guess I'm about 23,

24 in this story now, starting to

be aware that I'm not invincible.

Maybe I should learn

some skills, you know?

And, and so I then reached out to Jeff

Thompson and his team who were ge Jeff's

a legend in, in, in combat circles.

And his, his guy, his main

guy, Tony Summers in Coventry.

I would travel from Nottingham to Coventry

and back three times a week to, to immerse

myself in self-protection which is this

kind of combat reality stuff, which is

because I was involved in real violence.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And this was like, you

know, I saw the writing was on the

wall, somebody was gonna get me.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: So I needed to hone

my skills and hone my skills.

So I went to Tony out in Coventry who

not only taught me some extraordinarily

impressive fighting skills and, and,

and made me capable to a degree but also

taught me the the sort of philosophical

means of removing myself from the

need for it, which was interesting.

The better I got, this is a,

a, a story as all this time.

The better I got and the more capable

I I got, and the more I saw the, the

repercussions more I saw the danger of

it, the more I distanced myself from it.

So a, a great journey

but a, a very physical

Speaker 2: as martial arts is something

everyone should do beautifully.

Whatever, it's martial arts box

in Juujitsu, anything like, it's

Speaker: yes,

Speaker 2: absolutely brilliant.

Speaker: I still absolutely, I still

think it's, and now exactly as you've

seen, look on it, not just as a, as a

a sport or, or as an outlet or, or as a

means of, of exacting one's, you know,

it's, it should be ingrained in all of us.

I think something very beautiful

Speaker 2: that that ability to,

especially for both as doing jiujitsu,

it's the ability to fold someone up and

have them at a point where you're gonna

snap something or put 'em to sleep.

Stop.

Have a little hug.

Speaker: Yeah.

Oh, it's, it's

Speaker 2: crazy.

You have a confrontation out, out on

a treat somewhere, and you just think.

Thanks.

You just turn around and you don't lose

any faith face, do you, knowing that you

know, you, you'll be severely impaired

if you want to go, but, and you just,

I don't, I've got nothing to prove.

Speaker: Well, there

Speaker 2: is, and you have

that ability to just walk away.

I've noticed to myself, it's,

it's absolutely brilliant.

Speaker: It's an amazing thing

to, to have at your disposal.

I talked to the kids about it.

I have three boys and a girl and

all four of them talked about

having that capability to protect

themselves, protect each other, also

to protect the person that might be

causing that in, in the situation.

You know, you can be, people

act in crazy ways and they don't

really know what they're doing.

And, and it's your role, your, your

your duty to make sure that everybody's

safe in that and that 99.9% of

the time means just get outta it.

Just go.

Yeah.

You know?

Whereas back then, right back to, to

where I was in the kind of timeline I

had this, and I guess every kid does

really this idea in my head that I had

to win every fight, otherwise I'd lose

status, I'd lose sense of self, or I

wasn't even marking it down in those ways.

It was just childish pride.

You know, I remember Tony said to me.

Why are you here?

What what is you want to learn?

And, and the way I described it to him

was there was a, a pub I was going to.

And I would go in that pub and I could

see that there was lads that wanted to

fight me, and I wanted to get to the

point where they knew that I was so

capable, they didn't want to fight me.

And he said, which ultimately

what I was saying, I want to be

the hardest guy around, which

is fucking rubbish, isn't it?

And and he said, have you ever thought

Johnny maybe just not going to that pub?

And do you know what, as stupid as

that is, and we're both laughing

at it, I was, my mind was blown.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, what, what, I mean, how

am I supposed to assert my, what I,

and you know, he's just stood kinda

looking at me knowingly waiting,

watching the penny, very slowly dropping,

came away like epiphany change in

that, that one ridiculous statement.

And that, that, from

there on, it's changed.

That changed everything.

Very grateful.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Tony's prison,

Speaker 2: the ability to remove

yourself from this situation.

Speaker: Yeah.

And to see, see in the first place,

you know, I'm, I'm manifesting this.

All the violence I had in my life

was entirely created from my own fear

and my own ego, both of which needed

reigned in and needed controlled.

Speaker 2: And then it, well,

you did, you know, and it, it,

Speaker: well, it's,

it's an ongoing journey.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

From, from that life.

You, you very well could not be here,

Speaker: you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Street gang violence is not,

Speaker: it was stupid.

All, all, it was stupid.

I know why it was there, and

there was things in me that,

that, that needed dealt with.

And all, all the rest of it.

We've all got that somewhere.

But you know, the path I was on,

we, we hear this all the time, it's

very, very true to say the path

that I was on was a very dangerous

and very obvious slippery slope.

So yeah, grateful for, for Jeff

and, and, and Tony especially.

Speaker 2: So I wanted to touch on

this and you may tell me to fuck off.

Speaker: Fuck off.

Speaker 2: We're a, sat our distance.

Now I bang my mic so you can't get to me.

You are a veteran but you don't

like being called a veteran.

So as by definition, a veteran is

someone who's committed one day of

service, whether it be in training,

they've got their, they've been on

tours, they've not been on tours.

Are you happy to talk

about it a little bit?

Speaker: Yeah.

Excuse me.

We, we'll, we'll, we'll skim

over it only because I, I'm,

I'm really nervous of any kind of

what, what do the Americans call?

Stolen Valley.

Stolen Valley.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and this kinda Walt scenario

and I see people around me.

Absorbing the flavour of military

lifestyle and, and then reselling

and repackaging themselves as people

that are, and, and they're not.

You know, and it's kinda like, look,

I, I can understand the kinda sexiness

and the appeal and, and, and the things

that people see and, and this kinda, the

alley clothes and all this kinda shit,

you know, and a git all, again, I get it

all, but I don't want to be in a position

where people feel like I'm tr you know,

trying to absorb that with, without having

to put in the work in the first place.

So I we're talking about this earlier.

This, this was news to you in, in 98.

And I'll say it again on camera.

This, this shows my age or seven.

That's twice you've told me that.

Very good.

Very good.

That's nice.

Alex.

In in 98 I signed up

to become an RF Gunner.

I was kinda strong armed to

that in the Armed Forces office.

There was, so we, we, we went through the,

the testing and the aptitude, and then

you had the, they would read through your

results and kind of try and peel you out.

Speaker 2: Yeah,

Speaker: there was a guy who was

very, very keen that I that and,

and I didn't know what I was doing,

so I was just going along with it.

And yeah, signed up as

and a list as RF gun.

I went through basic, all that kinda

stuff, but then immediately broke my knee.

Skateboarding, funny enough.

So I jumped off something maybe

as, as tall as you a fly off ramp

landed with my legs straight.

I had one can of beer.

I wasn't drunk, lightweight.

And, and the shin went right through

the knee and kinda smashed all.

And, and, and at the

same time, it twisted.

So I had this tibial plateau

fracture which, you know, if, you

know, you know, that's pretty bad.

And it was a spiral as well.

So ended up with pins through the knee

right through kind of Forest Gump style,

a a, a big cage on, and as a wheelchair

for three months, obviously immediately.

You're out, you, yeah.

So I, I was gone.

And, and I, I, I went to

go back two years later.

You know, 24 months is, is the, is

the timeline a big joint fracture at

the I think it was 22 months into that

24 months, they needed to take the

pins out, which counts as surgery.

So there, it's another 24 months.

So that happened twice.

Was it three times.

Anyway, I could tell a long story here,

but this, this kind of constant need for

the need to be looked after, offset my

opportunity to, to, to reintroduce by

which point I'm building up a career,

I'm doing things, I'm having kids, you

know, and, and we came back north, this is

all down in Nottingham, came back north.

And I went through the reservist route.

Went through, I'm trying

to think of the order now.

Went through four power out

in Edinburgh by this point.

And originally the, the, the, the hope

for me in my mind is this, it, you know,

I wanna do everything that was, was sf So

through Four Power with an sf direction.

And again, it got so far and the, the

external organisation Origin, Attos

Origin, who manage all the, all the

admin essentially is, is an agency

that the government offset these things

to everybody within the, the kinda

military circles that you're good to go.

At this point, I'm doing a hundred mile

ultramarathons with huge packs on my

back, and so I'm clearly fit and strong.

But they looked at the,

the doctor's notes.

The doctor even wrote me a note

saying, look, these are the facts.

This is, this is the reality.

He tried to kinda help along.

So I got in, got so far and, and they

bumped me, and that happened twice

just before we couldn came a camera.

I was saying, I have this strange thing

that I've never heard anybody's got.

I, I've actually got a, a letter

from the military asking me never to

apply again because the resource and

the town is to help me come through.

They, so they, they wrote this letter.

There is a code for it.

They wrote a letter.

I'll show you something saying, look,

we're we're directly a, a personal letter.

I think it felt like it was

personal saying you've applied

so many times, but now we're

gonna ask you not to apply again.

You've, and there was something to

do with the amount of times that

I'd applied and the injuries that

I was keeping trying to get past.

They were just saying,

look, don't do it again.

This is a waste of your

time and waste of our time.

So if we go on, I can show you.

If we go onto the you know, the

online portal that you can go on for

recruitment, there's a big red, it

comes up like, like almost a joke thing.

Ah, yeah,

Speaker 2: no.

Speaker: So I'm not allowed

to go on there, but it shows

all the, all the pathways and

there's eight open open forms.

Speaker 2: And Jon, the difference

there with saying, you know, you

don't stolen valour and all of that

is how someone comes across and how

they're perceived by other people.

I don't think, and Fraser sat

behind the camera, do we think

he's a bit stolen valour?

He's shaking his face and he's bald,

so he trust him because he looks hard.

But you know, I completely get what you

say, and I think it's the people that

are so worried about how they'll look

to others by not wanting to do that

are the guys that are the most genuine.

And you know, like I

think you're a veteran.

You signed up, you went through

training, you had an unfortunate

accident, and you went and got at it.

And at it, the guys that again,

personally not combat back fuels, don't

sue me, that are not veterans, are

the guys that are in training, been

through training, been injured, got out,

whatever, and then they live by that.

That's their whole personality.

I'm a veteran, I'm a this, I'm a that.

And they make it their personality.

You don't, you're like, it's something

I did and I think you absolutely are.

You know, it's, thank you for your

service and, and wanting to join

up and you didn't get to deploy

or do anything, but you still,

Speaker: yeah, I didn't get to, yeah,

Speaker 2: you still went through

trade and you signed on a dotted

line and you went and attacked it

again and again and you haven't

made it your whole personality.

And I think that's commendable.

Speaker: Well, I, I appreciate that.

But there are, there are people that

have been, been in, done the work

that people who've clearly who, who

have, who've lost their lives or

their lives have changed you know,

negatively and positively for it.

And I, I can't claim that, you know, it

is and, and I, I feel it and understand

it and, and see it for what it is.

So it's never, it, it, it's not, certainly

not turning my back on any of the things

that I did, but I don't want it to be

seen, you know, there could be thing.

The involvement with you

guys has come completely.

You didn't know at all until today.

Speaker 2: No, I, I say until today.

I, I was under the impression that you.

Had gone to apply and you were

trying to join and that's when

you'd had your, your knee injury.

Speaker: Yeah,

Speaker 2: that's

Speaker: which is fine.

I mean, ultimately, you know,

that's not the story I'm trying

to tell, you know, but, but

Speaker 2: no,

Speaker: it's it is what it's, I I

I find it uncomfortable, but I think

for positive reasons that, that we

talked a minute ago about Luke from

contact Coffee had a, as an analogy

separate to this, but I liked it.

Which was, it, it, it would be like

saying, I, I was a Celtic player

or something, which is my team.

Say I'm a Celtic player, but

actually I never got a game.

I got signed up, I was on the bench,

but never come off the subs bench.

You, you couldn't claim that.

'cause the first question

somebody's gonna ask, oh yeah.

What games did you play?

What you know, and, well, I didn't play

any, what do you mean you didn't play any?

Yeah.

And so you end up kind of backtracking.

It's like, I wish I'd not

said in the first place.

Yes.

Because that makes me seem

like I was trying to see

something that's disingenuous.

And that's the, that's the

struggle I've got with it.

And that's, that's the kind

of analogy I put there.

Humble.

Speaker 2: It's humble.

Speaker: Well, it's accurate Yeah.

As well.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Very, very.

At this point I said, you know,

you kids had, had come along.

How was that being a

father for the first time?

Speaker: Exciting, tough.

All, all the things every father will see.

When, when Ashley and I find out

that she was pregnant, the very

first thing I said, well, shit,

should we, should we tell an adult,

Speaker 2: excuse me.

Speaker: I still wonder

whether we should go four.

So I was, that was an interesting thing.

So Poppy our eldest, who's an

extraordinary athlete, by the way, both

about her, if you wanna take 20 minutes,

but she's she came along living in Notting

in amongst all this kind of badness.

This what's the word?

I'm nefarious activities that we,

that we were involved in down there.

And as soon as it was clear that, that Ash

was pregnant the first thing I actually

said after that was, we need to move.

I wanna bring a child.

I've been amongst the

things that I was doing.

So it changed my life.

Really, really positive.

Just in that moment,

Speaker 2: a big defining moment was,

was finding that Ash was pregnant.

Speaker: Yeah.

Because I'm immediately

without any kind of thought.

It was instinctively.

We, where we move from here now, then.

Yeah.

Prior to changed, which we did, we, we

were in, she was born and we were, we

were back in Scotland and been in same

house since for within three months.

Speaker 2: How long have you been

up there back in Scotland for now,

Speaker: Hoppy's, turning 18,

which again makes me feel very old.

So we've been back up for 18 years now.

Nearly, nearly

Speaker 2: 18.

And still love in Scotland for the day.

Speaker: Me, it's, it's home.

Yeah.

It's also where I've moved to now is,

is actually where my granddad was.

So we've travelled in from Thur

to that, to that village and that

house and, and all the rest of it.

So I'm kind of back home and,

and, and yeah, I, I love it.

I, I'm very proud to be Scottish and,

and very lucky to, to be Fraser and I

were talking about the Hills earlier on.

I've got, I can jump in the car and be

in amongst some Monroe within an hour,

Speaker 2: you know,

Speaker: and you know, there's some

beautiful hills in, in England, beautiful

Hills and Wales, but there's, there's

something magical, there's something

Speaker 2: special about Scotland there.

There really is, you know, like Iry

do a lot of our training and our

exercise up there, and at the time,

fucking Scotland, it's always raining.

It's all flat shit place.

Yeah.

Speaker: But that's, that's part

of the charm is that the weather

itself in, in Scotland is unique.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: It's, it's a unique

environmental system and, and that's,

I don't think there's anywhere in

the world that's harder to train

than Scotland, you guys, which

Speaker 2: is why Yeah,

Speaker: exactly.

Speaker 2: Is why it's

done so much and utilised.

Speaker: I remember going up and down

that mountain and, and good friend Sam

who came up with me ex-military, you know.

Sam Sammy Sealey.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: He he, he, he and I were talking

about, we're saying it's not just that

it's windy, it's not just that it's

cold, it's also that it's fucking wet.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Yeah.

Speaker: And that's just

a constant, isn't it?

And it,

Speaker 2: yeah.

Speaker: But it makes for the environment.

It makes for, it does

experience, makes for everything.

So, and I'm very blessed to be,

Speaker 2: and it is absolutely stunning.

Like, if you extraordinary haven't been

to Scotland, you absolutely should go.

Like, I go back up now, like e

every couple of months for, for

military meetings, events and stuff.

And it, I sometimes think, wow, I was so

naive as a, but then when I was like a

19-year-old kid on the side of a mountain

and I was trying to like, dig in and bash

up and I'm being, it is raining so hard.

It is sweeping you down.

Yeah.

Everything's wet.

Trying to do wet and dry

drills, putting wet kit on.

When you get it up, it you,

I mean, they shot roads.

That rain so heavy up there,

like it is, it's wild.

But yeah, going back up there now, I'm

like, wow, this, this place is stunning.

Like,

Speaker: oh,

Speaker 2: it's beautiful.

You could do, yeah, it was, yeah.

What was, or Scotland for a retirement?

Speaker: Wales was beautiful.

Me and I was talking again earlier on.

You know, we're, we're all very lucky to

live where we are in the uk 'cause I came

through yesterday from Bristol Airport,

drove across here in, in the Wilshire.

And what a stunning country.

You know, it's, it's all very well

and good to be saying, I'm Scottish.

Go fuck yourself, England.

Yeah.

But this, it is the country I love.

But it's beautiful.

But it's beautiful in

a very different way.

Scotland.

Scotland offers something very unique.

And I'm very, very lucky.

Very blessed to be there.

I'm very blessed to

bring kids up in there.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

And it is, I suppose

Scotland for, for kids.

Well, I was growing up, when

you were growing up, technology

wasn't really a thing.

PlayStations didn't exist, but

mobile phones didn't exist.

None of it.

No.

Gonna play with your friends was you

gotta memorise your mate's numbers.

You coming out to play.

And I suppose where you are in

Scotland now, that's going outside

and playing outside is, it's

still a thing that kids can do.

Speaker: It is me.

Yeah.

I mean, less so now I, I I'm, we could

digress here for a moment or two, but

I'm not sure whether it's a, a social

thing now, like an idea that people

have, whether we're any less safe than

we were back then, but we're, we're less

inclined to let 'em go out and go mad.

Yeah.

When I was a kid, especially where I was.

But I don't hear stories down the road,

down in you know, Glasgow any different.

We would go out in the morning,

like during the summer holidays.

Yeah.

We'd go out when, when, when

the sun come up and come back.

When the sun went down.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Back in.

But before street lights come on.

Speaker: And it was, and that was it.

It's not, it's a thing.

It's real, you know?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And our kids don't

do that, you know, because

Speaker 2: especially down here,

it's where I live, it's a very

small area and it's, you know,

there's always kids out playing.

They're going out playing

football, they're playing Kirby.

And it's, it's so nice to see.

But until that, like living in a

town previously, now living in a, a

very small place with like, like a

few thousand houses, it's, and where

I live, like on the outskirts of

that, like there's like 150 houses.

It's so refreshing to see.

I'm like, I'm living my childhood through

them and like a ball will come over and

they come round and they're knocking

Speaker: out, oh, please, could I get

my ball when it's, I mean, there's

still still some of that everywhere.

Yeah.

It's, I guess it's, it depends

where you're, it depends what the

congregation's like, it depends

what the environment's like.

But like you say, when I mentioned Tommy

earlier on, if I want to go and see Tommy

or anybody up in Thurso, I might have to

walk because it wouldn't be, we were kids.

See if I phoned up, I might get

his mom or nobody would answer.

These were landlines.

There was no mobiles or anything.

Yeah.

So you would just go out, I'm

gonna go and find such and such.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And it'd be a six mile walk.

He'd banging the door and he's not in.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: He's gone out like, alright,

well I'll just fucking walk home again.

So,

Speaker 2: yeah.

Speaker: You know that even, even exercise

and movement was a different thing.

Now they'll message each other or

they not go out 'cause they just,

they they can communicate anyway.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Through Snapchat or whatever

and, and, and, and all the rest of it.

Whereas to find that person, we

actually had to do something physical.

You had to go out on your bike

or go for a walk or whatever.

Yeah.

You might not find them.

So then even then it's like,

well, there's something different

comes of that isn't there?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Yeah.

Speaker: There's a great

little thing on, on YouTube.

I'll have to find it and send it to you.

But it's, it's a kind of a, I think it

must have been made in the seventies

and it's this little documentary

scene where there's a guy, Scottish

guy called Tam, and he lives in a, in

a place, older guy and he's getting

on his bike to go and see his pal.

His pal lives 20 miles away.

So he goes on his bike and the

camera catches him halfway through.

He lifts up a rock.

That's where his whiskey stash is.

Has a little drink of whiskey,

puts it back under the rock, keeps

going, and he gets there and knocks

on the door and she's not in.

So he just goes to the pub as a

few paints and cycles back again.

Love it.

This is this document about the

Scottish life and I think that's

how we all were as kids, you know?

Yeah.

Minus the, not always minus

the whiskey actually us.

That's a little bit of that's gone.

But where we are there's a kind

of a, a kind of half and half.

There's enough for them.

Speaker 2: So we're like rewinding

back to we, you just had your daughter

you've moved back up to Scotland.

What's your career doing at this point?

Speaker: So I was involved with for

a long time and amongst all these

kind of, we, we always joke about the

thousand lives of Jo Bene is that I

also had a career as a in recruitment.

So I started off, actually worked

in, down in Nottingham in forensics

mental health institutions.

I guess it's hard to describe this

without being somewhat offensive

to what the job was supposed to

be, but the, the role essentially

was like a care assistant role.

I can't remember what the title was.

Now we, going back a long way, but

our job was to observe and manage

these nowadays they called them

clients, we called them patients.

Everybody that were on these wards

were on these wards because they've

come through the criminal system,

they've done something pretty heinous.

And they were there because

their mental health excluded them

from a, from a prison service.

So forensic mental health.

Ultimately you were bonus, you, you

were managing these, these individuals

who may kick off and be violent or,

and, and, and trying to kind of help

them organise their day-to-day stuff.

But really it was kind of watching

over them to make sure that they

didn't kill each other themselves

or you as the day-to-day job.

And it, it was a really specialist

role that you had to have kind of

physical capabilities and, and,

and present in a certain way.

You had to be capable.

And it was quite hard to employ people

into those roles because it was very,

they burn out really, really quickly.

Something, you know, a few

weeks doing that, you're

like, I can't do this anymore.

A team of us who could.

And so I branched out from actually

being the care provider of working in

that to building an agency where we

were employing people, which brought

me into the world of recruitment.

And, and that's where I went from there.

So during that, then I jumped about

different companies and became the

business development director of a

group of of recruitment companies.

One of which more of my interest, or

sorry, more of my time was spent was

foster care recruitment, which that

allowed me to move back north because

we had a big branch set up, literally

a mile from, from where I live.

So, perfect timing, perfect place.

That's what allowed me to come

back north, but I hated it.

And I think it lasted another two

years doing that and just had to

say, look, I can't do it anymore.

Speaker 2: And what was it about

that job that you, you hated?

Speaker: The, the foster care stuffs

tell you is kinda relatively obvious.

So my job was at this point as a

business development director, was

I would work kind of, directly with

procurement teams, so NHS procurement

councils local government stuff.

And my job was to produce tenders and

contracts to try and win the business.

So they would have X amount of

difficult foster care cases.

We would have the kind, the social

care workers and the foster cares

themselves as, as our employees.

And then we would bid for that work based

on the specialty of those employees.

Very capitalist way to

look after children's care.

And part of the job for me was to

read the case studies to understand,

obviously they're anonymous to me,

but I'm reading these case studies to

understand the needs of the kids and

there sell the idea that our people

are the most specialists and therefore

command this fee and then contract that

out and, and, and produce a, a tender

and try and win that, which I hated

because I'm reading these case studies

and, and all, you know, I've got kids by

this point and I'm reading it, and this

child, a et cetera, said you read right

through and it's heartbreaking stuff.

And then I'm gonna wait and

attaching a tariff to that, you know?

Yeah.

And my heart wants to say, just

fucking somebody going and look after

them, you know, which I understand

isn't the way that commerce works,

isn't even the way that care works,

because it's gotta be managed and

it's gotta be systemized and things.

But, but still, we had the people,

we were holding them off for the best

price, which is how recruitment works.

But to me it was just eventually

I wasn't sleeping, I was drinking

a lot and trying to manage this.

Dichotomy, I suppose, in, in, in my head.

See, it makes me nervous now talking about

it because it was just so uncomfortable.

And, and I had a point of I

spoke to my mom on the phone.

I, I, I also had kids to look

after and the family to, to

maintain and all this kinda stuff.

So to suddenly see, you know, I

was earning very, very good money.

But then with that comes to trappings of

good money, fancy cars and things that I

don't actually own all this kinda stuff.

Yeah.

So if I say I'm not doing it anymore,

everything grumbled or that's what

I thought when I spoke to my mom

and she called me enough expletives

to make me realise that, you

know, maybe there was another way.

So she just told me,

look, we all love you.

If you are unhappy and you're doing that

for our sake, something's twisted there.

You need, you need to change that up.

Find out what it is you want to do.

And I've been coaching people loads,

you know, at this point, very much

involved in, in martial arts, mixed

martial arts, all kinds of things.

And, and I knew so much and I was

so invested and loved it so much

that people were coming to me and

I was coaching people for free.

Some people pay me a

little bit of a fee for it.

And, and, and so I, what do you wanna do?

Well, I wanna be a coach full time.

Go fucking do it then.

That was her response.

And I, oh, but I can't, I

can't, she's fucking told you.

Go, go and do it.

Yeah.

A little brick.

Yeah.

I, oh, it's getting stuff.

And I came off the call

really super empowered.

And, and I guess there's something

relatively sweet about it,

but, 'cause my mommy had said

I didn't wanna let her down.

Yeah.

And, and she said that, that

this is letting me down.

You know, this, you not doing this double

life upsetting yourself and all that.

That's letting me down,

chasing what you want to chase.

It was a great lesson as

a, as a dad and as a son.

And, and so that night I handed in my

nose and I went, I went to the university

in Dundee with a suit and tie on to try

and convince him to take me on because

he didn't have qualifications in that.

And the guy laughed his head off his

like, why have you got suit and tie on?

That's

Speaker 2: so,

it looks good.

Speaker: Took his eye off.

I thought I had to impress you.

He says, what do you know?

And I told him, he go, okay,

just, just jump on the course.

We'd love to have you.

So, yeah, within a week I was on, I had

gone from earning six figures to, to four.

I couldn't get a student loan because

my, my, my earnings beforehand

had no, no, you earned too much.

You've earned too much.

We can't give you that.

So I was skinned.

So then had to go and shovel shit in

order, in order to make this work.

But it still felt good.

Speaker 2: Us

Speaker: to overnight

Speaker 2: your mum for pushing you

then to, to get an into coaching.

She

Speaker: was pissed off that

I'd never mentioned it before.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Not, not, oh, I've

let you down or anything.

No, just you're a little prick.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Savage.

Go on, mom.

Speaker: Yeah.

Which is what I genuinely needed

to hear is like actually Yeah.

Yeah.

Sometimes.

'cause my idea of this, sorry mate.

My idea of no, I have

to do it for the people.

That was a little bit of ego as well.

It's, it's like, no, actually you

just, this is, this is selfishness.

You know?

'cause you're, you've got this

idea in your head that you are,

you know, the arbitrator of, of all

these people's or the facilitator

of all these people's outcomes.

You know?

But, you know, if you're not treating

yourself, it's, it's bollocks and you're

teaching everybody the wrong lessons,

so therefore you're own problem.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh fuck.

Speaker 2: I,

well,

Speaker: which twice totally,

totally gave me that bit of advice.

But not being a dick,

Speaker 2: it's, when you're surrounded

by good people, your family and friends,

like, they don't care what you are,

they don't care what you can do.

They care that you are happy.

Yeah.

In your life doing what you want to do.

You know, like, and I

big believer in karma.

Like if you're doing,

you put yourself first.

You can't help anyone else if

you don't put yourself first.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Everything

else will just you on

Speaker: oxygen mask

first and all that stuff.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: Everything else

will just fall into place.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: As, as it did.

So we've gone onto this course.

How did you find it?

Speaker: It frustrating for so many.

I was 32, 33 at the time, I think.

And, and you know, I was on a

course with 18-year-old kids and

they, they were more interested.

This is their first opportunity.

They just left school and all.

They're all fucking about and you

know, and I'm trying to comfort,

trying to learn, you know.

Yeah.

And I couldn't, I couldn't, you

know, find the middle ground with it.

And also 'cause I'd been coaching

so long and I understood that

I still had to start, I didn't

have any actual qualifications.

So I started at first year and without

this meaning this sound egotistical

at all, I knew way more than they were

teaching me to suck eggs a little bit.

But I had to do it.

I had to You

Speaker 2: needed the qualification.

Speaker: Yeah.

Do you know what it turns out?

I don't know if I did.

Nobody once has ever asked me,

can you show me your degree?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Do you know what, as a personal

trainer, very different.

And I did like up to level four,

so not, not a degree level.

But, but learning, like

having to go through.

So my exercise referral thing, which was

I think is level four and all learning all

your comorbidities and all of that stuff.

I'd advertise it and no, not once as

a personal trainer, had anybody said,

what qualifications have you got?

Or Can I see your insurance?

Not once

Speaker: nobody's ever

Speaker 2: asked

Speaker: me for it.

Speaker 2: Trained hundreds of people.

Not once.

Yeah,

Speaker: exactly.

Speaker 2: And it's not a protected term.

So you

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: That is not an advocate

for going to just do stuff

without a qualification either.

However,

Speaker: I mean, there are some

jobs corporately where you need to

show them the sort of certification.

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: I, I've never had those jobs,

so I, I went the route very much.

And I guess there is a distinction

here, rather than personal training.

I was looking at strength

and conditioning.

And actually the degree that I

did was performance nutrition.

Yeah.

So, so science and what science, sports

science, exercise and performance

nutrition was this big long thing.

And at the same time doing the

U-K-S-C-A and the CSCA accreditation

at the, the American version of which

the international accreditation, you

can't get until you get the degree.

That's what I wanted was the opportunity

to be able to say that, you know,

not just you know, helping people

work out that this is a, a huge

sort of physiological understanding.

And, and, and, and the deeper I went

into that, the more involved I got in

it and the more I wanted to do that.

And so, so I went down that very kind of,

scientifically driven route which again

makes people less inclined to ask you for

qualifications if you know what you're

doing, you know what you're talking about.

But I wanted to work specifically

with athletes at the time come kind

of full circle on that actually.

But that's what I wanted

to do was work in sport.

And so that was the route I took.

And so while I was at the

university doing the, it was the

nutrition course that I was doing.

I also wrote and taught the SSC course

'cause I had more qualifications

than the, than and experience, than

the than the guy doing the course.

So we taught it together.

A guy called Meko Great extraordinary

scientist actually, but didn't

have any practical experience.

So we'd do a kind of a mock and

wide routine where he'd stand

up and he'd give the science.

Then I'd break the science down

and see how that applied to real

application, which is great for learning.

'cause you hear all these facts

and figures and all the rest, like,

but what does that actually mean?

So we were producing that, which was

really, really, really fun for me.

And got, got the degree and, and

then went on to the master's.

And there, there's a still a

PhD sitting in the background

somewhere if somebody could Yeah.

A fund it on and b,

give the time to do it.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: But I really,

really love it all, mate.

Speaker 2: I mean, who goes

for a course at a uni course?

It ends up delivering part

of the course as well.

Speaker: It's, it's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just one of those things, it's

like, how are we gonna do this?

And, and you know, at first it was

a, a hindrance to me being older.

And then actually, you know, the, the

friends I had at uni were the lecturers.

You know, we'd go and

have cups of tea Yeah.

And all the rest and chat through stuff.

And they get these guys had a

background, had some sporting experience

and had application of their, of

their education that I didn't have.

So I was able to tap into that.

Spent a lot of time in the labs with

them, and obviously these conversations

like, Johnny, you could teach this first.

Just come on as a fellow.

We'll sign you on and do this and do that.

So that's how that came about.

It wasn't that, oh, this

is the most qualified guy.

It was through networking, essentially.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the fact that I was older actually

proved to be really, really useful for me.

They say education is wasted on the

young, and I think that was proof of it.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Because the rest of them

were just fucking about.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

I remember going and doing it at

college and I, I was doing sport and

it was, you, you're there for as much

of a good time as you are and it's,

Speaker: yeah.

Speaker 2: It's a part of growing up

into who you are as well, isn't it?

Yes.

You need to,

Speaker: don't get me wrong.

I got waned with these kids quite a lot.

Speaker 2: That's brilliant.

Love it.

Speaker: But I was still

turning up the next day.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it was, it was good.

It was a good experience.

Yeah.

I was glad when it was done though.

It wasn't

Speaker 2: how long was the course?

Speaker: Four years.

Four years.

Yeah.

And, but also because I'd given up that

job, it was, it was hard work for me.

It was in Dundee.

So from where I am,

that was I had no money.

So it was a bus for me.

About 90 minutes each way on the bus.

Had two kids at that point.

And I also had to work,

Speaker 2: so I

Speaker: was doing kind night shifts

and agency work and just picking

up any old, any old job anywhere,

doing anything to try and make ends

meet so they could make that happen.

So it was, it was a long, tough

four year, not just for me, but

Speaker 2: the family.

Speaker: The family, yeah.

We didn't have anything, didn't

have a car and that stuff, which

at the time felt like a burden.

Now kind of look back on it as

good times, you know, because we,

Speaker 2: I get it.

Bonus memories.

And too, it is short term

sacrifice for long term gain.

If you, you know, if you don't need

a car, you don't need a car, you

know, if you can invest in yourself,

which you, you evidently did end

up producing something of value to

yourself and your family and you're

doing a job that you enjoy and you love.

Speaker: Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, and, and I do, I do love

what I do for the most part.

There's still like any job, there

are an admin, BOLs and, and,

and politics and things that you

don't wanna get involved in, but

Speaker 2: yeah.

Speaker: You know, and it,

it was a big, a big shift.

A big change.

Really hard, really hard.

There was, I think through that four

years, there was never a day went by

where it wasn't still this kind of idea

that I'm being really selfish here.

I could just go and get a job and fucking

sort every day out and we could have

a car, we could have this, have that.

So the support in the background

was always very key for me.

No, stay the course because

Speaker 2: this will pay off

as

Speaker: long as you're committed.

Speaker 2: So

Speaker: that was tough because I could

see that there were opportunities to

change that quite quickly because I

still had qualifications in other areas.

Yeah.

That I could have just fallen right back

and job offers and lucrative as well.

But they

Speaker 2: fair place to your

supportive family as well?

Speaker: Me, it was, it was, couldn't

have done it without any of them.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

Brilliant.

University's done four years.

We're mid thirties now.

Speaker: Getting on,

yeah, still on, actually.

Funny enough, had to, so it took

five ultimately 'cause I had to

defer for a year because my mom died.

And then I also looked

after my granddad and.

Died as well, three months after that.

So I was right in the middle

of exams and stuff like that.

I just can't cope with this.

So we, we, we offset that.

So actually five years,

Speaker 2: 36, 37 by

the time you finished.

Speaker: Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

Give or two.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: How did, what, what was

the first job that you went into?

After the qualified,

Speaker: what I had been do, so,

maybe about two and a half or so

years in, I started to take on

one-to-one clients and, and going

into various gyms and coaching people.

So I'd built up a little bit of a

roster of, of clients, some of them

gen pop folk that I just knew locally.

Kinda built up a reputation

for myself in the local area.

Any PT starting out, I think

that's something you should do.

Make yourself invaluable locally.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker: And I helped out a, a rugby

club and, and in return for me being

the s and c coach for them local to me

they gave me space to use their gym.

It was space.

I built the gym, but it was

the space that they were using.

So then I had a kind of a, a studio,

very spit and sawdust, quite disgusting.

Really.

So I had somewhere to coach.

So that was happening in the evening.

So I, as kind of as, as time had

gone on, I started to build up

a kind of a business for myself.

So when I popped out the other end,

it wasn't like I had nothing there

and I needed job, I actually built it.

And, and now I had the opportunity

to kinda see this is my full team

thing and open that up a little bit

wider, which, which I managed to do.

Speaker 2: And so business is going well.

You're doing something you enjoy.

Yeah.

Fair to say.

Happy with life after,

Speaker: yeah,

Speaker 2: obviously two unfortunate

passing in the family, but

Speaker: yeah, that was really tough.

Still tough.

I don't think it's

something you ever get over.

No loss of a parent, but it, it's

yeah, that, that was really tough.

Where were we going from there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Got lost in that for a moment.

Tough.

Oh,

Speaker 2: so what's going good?

What I was gonna touch on is.

We talked at the start about a mad

challenge and a vertical marathon, and

that wasn't just like a one-off thing.

Where where did this like desire or,

or want to come from doing challenges?

And you've done your fair share

of, of absolutely wild challenges.

I mean, some people might think like,

again, marathons are hard challenge and

ultra marathon's hard and tell us more

Speaker: what happened, who hurt you?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: That kinda question.

Yeah.

So this, this is all born of the same

stuff and I mentioned earlier on about

my dad and, and, and mountains and

scouting and all the rest of which is

something that we kind of as you are

when you're a kid, this is all the shit.

I don't wanna do this, you

know, turn my back on it.

And, but being up in Scotland being home,

I'd never lost a love for the mountain.

I didn't talk about it much, but I

never lost the love for the mountain.

So I would take myself out now

and again, which is something

that really warmed my mom's heart.

I'd say I've been up in the hill stage.

Good, good.

You know, and, and so I would

do that more and more and I'd

just enjoy being out there.

And, and that's still fundamentally

the core of it all is I, I love the

mountains, I love the hills, and,

and I'm, I'm fit and strong in them.

I move well not as well as I

used to, but I still move well

and, and, and I feel very alive.

So for me, there's almost a

spiritual connection up there.

So, so there's always a big draw and, and,

and a reset and a place of kind of, warmth

for me and, and, and goodness for me.

So that was there a, a

as a core part of it.

And, and the fighting was something

that I'd been doing a lot.

And, and like I said earlier on about

this kind of, it's all on me, this

personal challenge, I also loved training.

So I was really interested in, in,

in getting stronger and stronger.

And I'm doing all these disparate

things at the time and trying to

figure out whether I can get stronger

and attend to kind of larger and

larger endurance challenges At the

same time, is there a way of doing

this from a programming perspective?

And at the time, so now we have the

phrase hybrid which I, I'll take you

back to the origins of in a moment.

We've got at the time there's a very

short memory in, in, in the world

of strength and conditioning or,

or, or PTs and all the rest of it.

This was the case if you were a

bodybuilder or you were a strength

athlete, or you, you were, this was

the end of the spectrum you were in.

It was very much known a, a fact, if you

like, that you couldn't do endurance work.

And if you're an endurance guy, what

would you be lifting weights for?

You're just gonna fuck your

endurance up so you can't do that.

And these were, these were split camps

and, and whilst there was no rivalry

there, they were just different bodies

of effort, you know, different, different

places to, and, and I was interested

in both, but still hearing this

noise about how you could do things.

But then actually, funny enough,

military guys, so a lot of the coaching

I was doing now was reaching out to

military guys that I knew were guys

that are aspiring s SF labs and, and

helping take them through training.

I'm like, well, ultimately.

You know, they're gonna need a

certain amount of strength, you

know, and they're gonna need a, a

huge amount of endurance capacity.

But if they were weak,

they was blah, blah, blah.

So we're, and, and then you look at rugby

players and like, these, these guys are,

are training at both ends of the spectrum.

So this idea is actually bollocks

when you see it in practise, but what

is the best way to coach for that?

So I took myself through a hundred

different iterations and broke myself

and got injured and tried it all.

And also hooked up with a guy called

Alex Fider over in in America.

Who, so, so at the time, Facebook forums

were, where all this information came up.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker: So my name and his name were

constantly invoked on Facebook forum,

asked Johnny, he might know, and you

become the guy who knows, which gave us

a certain amount of following that all

crumbled in Instagram beginning thing.

You have to build up your

following again, who knows who.

Yeah.

By the time I was kinda quote

unquote famous in those circles.

And so was Alex.

And Alex and I discovered that we were

both trying to figure this shit out.

At the same time, he was a bit ahead

of me and, and started writing a

book called the, the Hybrid Athlete.

And the hybrid athlete was where

this idea of hybrid came from to

the point which he, he coined the

phrase, but funny enough, he coined

the phrase almost accidentally because

he didn't have a title for the book.

And eventually somebody

said, whatcha gonna call?

And he said, well, I don't know the

Speaker 2: hybrid, I didn't know.

Speaker: And that's why,

that's what we've got.

That's ambassador days

a little bit since then.

Yeah.

Now it's become kind of synonymous,

the high rocks and things like that.

But at the time, the idea was can you be.

Capable in this end of the spectrum,

capable at least two very disparate

ends of the spectrum that do not

necessarily explicitly support each other.

And, and we built a

methodology around that.

He had built his, I built mine.

We came together.

I, I worked with CHP still,

which is Alex's company.

And again, he wrote the book, he's

just written a second book actually,

which I wrote the forward to.

Very honoured to write the forward

to that book and, and helped with

some of the programming in the

first book, et cetera, et cetera.

So, very long answer to a short question

I was, I was trying to see how far I

could kind of push this stuff in terms of,

okay, so I can do the 10 K and I can lift

relatively heavy for my size and weight.

But can I, can I do like three

days in the mountains and maintain

that ability to do that quite fast

whilst maintaining this strength?

Yes, it turns out I can.

Okay.

And that was kind of intelligent or

unintelligent and then intelligent

programming built out of mistake.

And then can I then actually grow

that at the same time as growing this?

And that became the, the, the real kind of

personal and scientific interest for me.

And, and we've gone on to

kind of prove the science.

Yeah.

And, and the data sets I've got from

coaching people through this over the

years with the companies I've built and

all the rest of it, have like 12,000

athletes have taken through this kind

of process and, and provided with actual

direct training or, or programming

that they've, they've committed to

through the systems that I was using.

So I can see their software,

their sorry, their, their data.

And so it's, it's a proven methodology.

Speaker 2: 12,000 athletes is phenomenal.

Speaker: Oh, I've been very, very,

very lucky to, to, to work with that.

Speaker 2: I, I hope you

Speaker: develop it that much.

Speaker 2: Look, look back on

it and think like, that's a huge

amount of athletes to coach.

That's not a generic PDF.

There's a programme.

Go and do it.

That's like coaching in its purest form.

Speaker: It, well, arguably not

all of them were coach directly.

So I built 30 or so

different programmes Yeah.

That had coached literally

thousands now directly.

But, but the, the, the, the vaster number

comes from the fact they built all these

programmes and offered people a chance

to, to work through them, but then

was there to answer the questions and

Speaker 2: yeah,

Speaker: okay.

Adapt this change.

And the rest of it,

Speaker 2: when I say like, so a bit of a

throwaway comment as in a PDF programme,

like it's quote on now, people will put

together like, you want to run a marathon,

and it'll be on a, a four slide of Yeah.

Incremental runs, do that, and

you'll be able to do a marathon,

which it's not, it's not coaching.

Speaker: No, no.

It's, that genuinely isn't.

Even the programming that I wrote

which were essentially off the

shelf programmes, they still exist.

I still sell them.

I, I still think there's value in them.

I pushed hard against

that in the first place.

I didn't want to do that

because I felt like,

Speaker 2: but when they're, when they're

done properly with proper thought and

proper process behind them, then they're,

they're actually a really good tool.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: For people that might not

be able to as well afford a one-to-one

Speaker: Absolutely.

Approach

Speaker 2: going

Speaker: on.

Speaker 2: And

Speaker: they're, yeah.

It's a blueprint.

Yeah.

They Okay.

Do these things.

But the problem I had with it was that

that individual gets that blueprint

and then real life happens to them.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And then they try and

continue with the blueprint, but all

the external stresses have changed.

So this no longer works.

You know, you if all your ducks are in

a row and the north wind is blowing,

and, you know, you've got your,

you're all well fed and well recovered

and everybody's smiling that day.

Think this programme does

work very, very well.

But you know, it, nothing exists

in, in isolation like that.

So I had a real kind of pushback, but

then I put it out that people wanted

it, people needed it, people used it.

And, and we developed a platform

where they could kind of learn

more about how to adapt it.

Very proud of it too.

Speaker 2: How, how did you

find it trying to get clients?

Well, did it come naturally to

you or did you have to really

graft to try and get the business?

Speaker: It, it still

doesn't come naturally to me.

I, I've built my very

first website yesterday.

I, I I say that that obviously

people that, that may have fall a

bit of the journey know that I was

involved with omni performance.

We built that as well.

So we, I I've, I've had a

presence and, and had a, an

internet presence in that sense.

But going back before that I

mentioned to you guys earlier

on, I think you already knew.

I've, I've worked at the highest

level with Tyson Fury as a strength

and conditioning consultant.

I worked Billy Joe Saunders,

and that came about with no

advertising, no website, no nothing.

This was all word of mouth.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, this is

the guy to speak to this

Speaker 2: today.

And the, the Tyson Fury, when you

were coaching him for his s and c

stuff is a time where very famously

was knocked to the ground and

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Got back up and won.

It

Speaker: was, I've got some interesting

stories about that camp that I

might have to tell off camera.

But the fact that he was able to even

start that fight was, was down to without

ego fact was down to my consulting.

And the things that I had to say to

that camp, I was actually here in the uk

there were in, in Big Bear in California.

I was following Ben Davidson

and, and messaging him.

And he was sending me data

points back and, and I was

saying, you, you have to do this.

You can't do that.

Why the fuck are you doing this?

And then he would have to go

back, God bless him, and feed that

information back in and manipulate

how that was then delivered.

Yeah.

In order to get the outcome.

But some of the things

that they were doing at the

beginning of that camp were so.

Counterintuitive, well actually

probably intuitive to them, but,

but was gonna cause problems.

They were in altitude and stuff,

and it was like, you know, he

can't train this, you know?

Anyway, lots of stories there, but

as you see, he became very, very

conditioned and got off the, got

off the floor to win that fight.

I'm proud of that.

Speaker 2: You think without your

coaching, if it had been another

person, he would've not got up?

Speaker: Yep.

That's a really weird thing

to say because I'm very, yeah.

If, if the, the interventions

and, and the the specific, you

cannot do, and you can do and you

shouldn't be, and you should be.

Those conversations which were enacted

you know, they, they did things off

the back of them that they should,

and that, that I was telling to do.

If they hadn't done that, he'd

never, I, I don't think he made

it in a third and fourth round.

Personally, I could probably argue

that from a scientific perspective

as well, but that'd be a bit dull.

Speaker 2: And just changing

the tune a little bit.

So like, we're so science and so

knowledgeable, you're not what

we'd typically expect someone

to look like with your tattoos.

Have we got a story about

where, where your tattoos came

from because they look cool.

It is not what, not what

you traditionally expect.

Speaker: No, I don't.

There's, there's no rhyme or reason

quite often a question people ask about

tattoos and what does this one mean?

Fuck all?

Nothing.

Speaker 2: They just look cool.

Speaker: No, I mean, so, so the,

the, the black arm w was an accident.

How can you have a seven hour

tattoo accident at you ask?

I'd got a, a a, a really shitty

nineties tribal thing on my arm.

Yeah.

And I got that covered over

and there was one on my chest.

Got that covered over.

But the coverup was shit.

So we got that cover over done.

And then there was some geometric shapes

on this arm that a guy I was getting

tattooed by was doing kinda freehand from

his own, you know, his own creativity.

Yeah.

God bless him, Richard.

He came off a motorbike broke,

broke his hands to fuck his

collarbones, but hit his head as well.

Couldn't tattoo anymore.

I'm giggling.

This is terrible.

We giggle at, but he also couldn't

remember having ever started the tattoo.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: So he wasn't able to

see where he is going with it.

So whenever I went to somebody else

going, could you finish this though?

I dunno what the fuck he was doing.

So in the end I got so frustrated.

We just blacked that over.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: So I ended up with a black

forearm and that looks a bit weird.

Let's just, so clearly no

rhyme nor reason to any of it.

Yeah.

It's just sort of

happenstance and mistakes.

Yeah.

I got this kinda white skull

hand poked in and stuff.

Speaker 2: Nice.

Speaker: I like it all, but

most of them are just silly.

I've got a shark here.

That was my second boy

girl and three boys.

The middle boy Ruben.

He couldn't say shark.

He would see very clearly shade.

And it made me laugh so much

that I got a tattoo of a shark.

I love it.

So that I could show on the

tattoo and say, what's that?

So, so it's a shit daddy.

So that, that's the that's the

intellectual fucking merit.

Love it.

Of my tattoos are mostly

there, just 'cause I liked it.

And the granddad was the longest

serving miner in Scotland.

It's a little old mine in Atlanta for him

Speaker 2: that there's meaning behind

Speaker: of a few of them.

Some them.

I mean, skate or dice is what is what it

says on the tin, you know, the skull on

the hand that just light it, you know?

Yeah.

And some of them just made me laugh.

There's a know my legs have got

a thing saying fresh outta fox

and, and I've got broken dreams

tattooed on that bad knee and stuff.

Speaker 2: We just do like combat.

Cool.

Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

On the eyebrows.

Quite cool.

Clearly, clearly I could be

talked into tattoos very easily,

so it wouldn't be a fucking,

Speaker 2: you should definitely

let me try and do it as well.

Have you tattooed yourself?

Speaker: No.

No.

I had a, I had a notion that

I might get the kids to draw

pictures and, and, and have those

pictures tattooed on at one point.

I might still do that, but

I've not tattooed myself.

I'd like to at some point, but

I'd probably do a very shit job.

Mind you, it's not exactly gonna change

the landscape of tattoos and if I get

a shit one 'cause they're all shit, so.

Speaker 2: Oh, I love it.

So we've also turned out you, some

of the events challenges you've

done have been mad, but they

don't always go to plan, do they?

Speaker: No.

Speaker 2: You remember you were going to

run an ultra across four different things.

So desert, all of this.

Speaker: Yeah.

That

Speaker 2: was when you

got to the jungle though.

This you'd, you'd done Antarctic.

Speaker: Arctic.

Arctic.

So this is a beyond the ultimate good,

really good friend of mine, Chris King.

He runs, runs a group of

well, he runs a company called

Beyond, beyond the Ultimate.

And, and there are four global races.

I think he's actually got the

six, maybe seven races in the

in, in the, in the roster.

But the, the globe, the, the, the,

the four main ones are the Ice Ultra

then the jungle then the desert.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: This, I'm getting the order

wrong, but and the mountains, the

mo, the mountains are in Kazakhstan.

The deserts in Namibia, jungles in Peru

and the Ice Ultras in, in the Arctic.

So I did the ice Ultra.

That was a hard challenge.

One of the toughest years they've

had, there was a horrible storm

and people lost fingers and all

kinds of mental things happened.

But I got through that really quite well

and it was a challenge, but I, I loved it.

Speaker 2: Feeling good

and feeling strong.

Going

Speaker: into

Speaker 2: the next one,

Speaker: which was, so, yeah, sorry to

contextualise, I had planned to be the

first guy to do all four within a year.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And that was gonna be a

big thing to all these different

environments within one year,

which nobody had ever done before.

It's been done since.

And, and the guy that did it did it

way faster than I was ever gonna do it.

So well done to him.

Some, some young sexy Craig.

So, so that's been done since, but the,

the second one for me was the jungle.

And I got very, very ill.

Turned out I died.

I didn't know that until

a, a good bit afterwards.

Apparently twice.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it was, that was brutal.

I got so this is not

even a, did not finish.

It's not a DNF, it was a DNS,

it didn't even start that race.

I, I got to Peru, I'm trying to remember

the, the stats, but you fly in, it's

like 4,200 metres up into Cusco.

So fly into Lima, then fly to Cusco.

So you're at altitude

in this beautiful city.

Went for a pint in the, the

highest pub in the world.

I think they called it.

Good Irish pub, something nice fucking

Guinness in there, enjoying myself.

Came back out, walked across

the, the, the main plaza.

Just felt a bit dizzy, but that's fine.

You'd expect it.

Emma.

Altitude all of a sudden went back to

the hotel, felt a bit grumpy on my chest.

Again expected, you know, you

take a little bit of oxygen takes.

I, I was there five days in advance

to allow myself to acclimatise.

Yeah.

But it just got worse and worse.

And I ended up with a really grumbly

chest coughing a lot on this kinda

wheezy, you know, there, there

was definitely fluid on the chest.

So the, the, the global medics the

med team associated with beyond

the ultimate came and had a listen.

They said, look, this sounds bad.

We're gonna give you

another 12 hours or so.

Come see you in the morning.

Came and saw me in the morning

and, and the doctor, she said,

you're, you're in a bad state.

We're gonna take you to

the specialist clinic.

That was an interesting experience

'cause they took me to the specialist

clinic, but there was a language barrier

and I don't think they thought I don't

think they knew she was a doctor.

I think they thought she was my misses.

So we're in there together and

she's trying to say he's not well.

He's very, very unwell and they

thought that she was just you

know, a kind of a head pecking me a

little bit and all the rest of it.

Yeah.

And nah, he'll be fine, he'll be fine.

But she insisted that they do

a, a a X-ray did, did the X-ray.

It's not the NHS.

He came back 10 minutes

later with the results.

He said, this man is very unwell.

Speaker 2: Yeah,

Speaker: you're gonna, you

can't even take him away.

And he showed me, and one of

my lungs was completely full of

fluid, so they immediately admitted

me and I was there for 10 days.

And I lived most of those days going

in and out of a hyperbaric chamber.

'Cause of my lungs were fucked.

So what had started off as heap

high altitude pulmonary edoema

very, very quickly progressed to

pneumonia, bacterial pneumonia and

then it became a very, very bad case.

So they were trying to fix me.

They couldn't move me because the

movement would've, would've killed me.

So they had to keep me in the

specialist, you, the hyperbaric chamber.

I would not recommend to my worst enemy.

I hated it.

And then I was being fed all kinds of

drugs to try and keep me, keep me alive.

And, and it was only afterwards when

I read the notes that apparently

I'd gone out twice and they'd had

to resuscitate me and, and, and

it was bad, really, really bad.

Came back to the UK eventually.

And, and as soon as I got

back here, I got ill again.

I also hadn't fully recovered and I was

in hospital in, in ti for another week.

Touch and go quite, quite

brutal and, and quite mad.

'cause you know, actually from,

from where I was, you're supposed

to go higher to start the race.

Yeah, yeah.

And it's not, 4,200 metres

isn't isn't crazy high.

You know, this is, this is not, you

know, this my neighbour who's from

Nepal had gone back to visit family

and she was like, well, I was at 4,500.

I was fine.

You'd poof.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Oh, that's absolutely, thank you.

Speaker: So fuck you.

Speaker 2: But it's, yeah, from

being like one of the fittest people

going, you've just done your ice

ultra to go in there and it's,

that's how quickly things can just,

Speaker: and for the

jungle I was even fair.

I'd gotten a really,

really good condition.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

I remember your messages.

Just being like, you know,

you're absolutely buzzing for

Speaker: it.

Yeah.

I was trying this guy, I don't think

I've been fitter in, in my life.

Yeah.

Maybe, maybe a couple of times close

to it, but no, I've been really

pre I mentioned Alex Fi earlier on.

Alex had yeah.

You know, he'd prepped me for

offset all responsibility.

I will do everything I'm told and

get right for the, because the

jungle scared me because of the heat.

We, was it 22 degrees today

and I've been crying Yeah.

Every time we've walked outside of this

building, you know, so, and the humidity.

In the humidity,

Speaker 2: yeah.

Speaker: That was the one

that was always gonna be the

challenge of all four of them.

I wanted to do the ice and, and

I wanted to do the mountain.

The jungle in the desert

really didn't appeal, but it

was, that was the challenge.

But yeah it's we still don't know too, too

many things have happened since to allow

me the opportunity to go back, whether

or not I just don't operate at altitude

or whether that was a one-off thing.

The, the medical teams

are pretty convinced.

It was just a, you know, it happens now

and again and it was just, yeah, bad luck.

And, and I'm hoping it will because I, I

don't wanna shut those particular doors,

but it's still a kind of a, a worry.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Are are you going to try

and retet at some point

Speaker: that race?

Probably, yeah.

I'm very bad with unfinished business.

It feels, it feels like, I

don't, I don't like to be beaten.

And, and it sits heavy for me.

If, if something, if I haven't

completed something, hence Project

Vertical, we mentioned right at the

top of the top of the conversation.

Haven't gone back to try that again.

So I think I will go back, but now, now,

now there's a, there's two things happen

now, is that I wanna go back 'cause I want

to kick its teeth out what it did to me.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: But at the same time, I'm

more scared, you know, 'cause, and

I was, I was concerned about that

race, race in the first place.

But it's like,

Speaker 2: yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: So,

Speaker 2: and it's, is there any other

events, challenges you've done that are

harder than the two we've discussed?

Speaker: No, I think, I mean, I can't

speak to how hard the jungle is 'cause

I didn't get to, to actually do it.

So, so that was just a hard

personal challenge in that sense.

Project vertical is, is, is the

hardest thing I've ever done.

For, for many reasons, we've just been

to the Arctic to do something called the

Arctic Spine, which is like maybe, maybe

two, three times as long as the, the one

that I did before, that's God 300 and I'm

terrible with stats, but it's, it's 500

and something kilometres if not longer.

And that, that actually

failed just recently.

We went out there and,

and didn't complete that.

But that was just circumstance.

I, I feel like I could do that.

It just wasn't there for me in

the day, so I don't feel like that

one's sitting so heavy for me.

Just the other ones.

But the question was

anything harder and I think.

Well, no, probably project

verticals the hardest.

But then there's personal

challenges there.

Things come along that I look at.

I'd rather do project vertical every day

than face such and such a again, you know.

But you know, physically when

you break down project vertical

and I, and I tried to do this as

objectively as I could afterwards.

It's one of the toughest endurance

challenges ever conceived.

Not the, the idea of a project of, of a,

of a vertical marathon in of itself, but

doing it on that particular mountain.

And we talked earlier about even the

conditions in Scotland off camera.

Tr and I were talking

earlier on all three of us.

In fact, whilst doing that

challenge, I, I rescued 11 people.

And that was over a five day period.

And that's just people climbing

up and down kind of, in a,

in a, in a pedestrian manner.

Those are just going up to see the top.

Whereas I, I, I'm marching

through this thing.

And so more each day's like laps, that's

risk, risk, risk, risk and just compounds.

'cause it's a numbers game, isn't it?

How many times can you climb a mountain

before it gets you, you know, I,

I nearly came across two or three

times up there where I think it was

just pure luck that I didn't die.

And that's just, that's just been nervous.

But

Speaker 2: yeah.

Speaker: Any, any mountain in Scotland's,

not just a mountain isn't, no, it's

Speaker 2: absolutely not.

Speaker: It's a potential death trap.

And it's,

Speaker 2: I mean, let's just to

contextualise that as well, like

Mount Everest compared to doing your

vertical mar makes Everest look small.

Speaker: Well, statistically yes, in the

sense that, that the distance and, and

the total gain is like five times as much.

There's obviously very

different challenges.

Yeah,

Speaker 2: absolutely.

If we're talking just the

distance that you climbed

Speaker: height, oh yeah.

It's much, much fun.

Speaker 2: 5 5, 5 Everest is,

Speaker: yeah.

Oh, it's insane.

Yeah.

It's

Speaker 2: a long way to be going up,

Speaker: but it's very,

very different challenges.

Yeah.

But, but we do something in,

in running something called

the, the normalised gradient.

I dunno if you heard of that before.

So, so if you, if you look at the

gradient of something and consider,

okay, if we took that and flattened

that out, how long would it be?

And what would the effort be like?

So if we flattened out what I did

on, on on Nevis, it, it'd be the

equivalent of a a thousand plus

miles of just constant movement.

Which, I mean, that's just

stupid anyway, isn't it?

So, but actually, if you then, then

take that and smash it up into these

kind of pockets of, of, of constant

it's actually the, the, the descent

as everybody knows, that's done any

mountain training or or running or fell

running or anything coming downs where

the damage happens and it's where the

accidents happen and all the rest of it.

And so 32 descents of, of of

Ben Nevis almost killed me.

Well, it, it nearly did talk

about that if you want as well.

If I could ascend it and somehow

parachute back to the bottom,

I think I could do 60, 70.

I just felt strong as hell.

Wow.

And I got stronger 'cause I

was more conditioned specific

conditioning over over 15 days.

You're just gonna get

stronger and stronger.

Speaker 2: And, and please tell us

what, what, what were the instances

that were close to death for you?

Speaker: Well, the, the key, so I was

talking earlier on about the, the rescues

that we did was a, there's a couple

of girls, myself and Mac, really good

friend of mine runs Nomad Mountaineering.

He, he came up to support me

on, on quite a few summits.

And on one of the ones that he was with

me, we heard a scream in the distance.

And this had been a, a bluebird day,

really beautiful day where the forecast

was from for nothing but sunshine.

But it's Scotland.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: The mountains don't

give a fuck about your forecast.

So we, we were up there and we had, we

had all our kit with us but others didn't.

They picked a beautiful

day and they were going up.

So, but we heard this scream, the,

the, the, the rain had come in the, the

the, what's the word I'm looking for?

Visibility.

Thank you.

Was maybe about a metre by this point.

And earlier on we could

see to yeah, shiha.

And now, now we can't see

our own feet properly.

So these girls had come off the

summit and from what we can make

they just aired off by a degree

or something off, off the path.

And the path just broken stone.

And, and, and, you know, it's, it's only

manmade from many people walking on it,

but it's, it's the top of a mountain.

So they'd ended up nearly falling

off the south side and they

were screaming and shouting.

We, we, we came and rescued them.

They would've perished for sure.

But to answer your question, that's

a really easy mistake to make.

And I'm up down there two, sometimes

three times in a row, clearly

doing this thing in the pitch

black just with my head torch on.

But when the weather comes

in, you know yourself, you've

got a head torch of any kind.

Yeah.

And the weather's in it

actually makes it worse.

'cause all you see is the rain.

So you kinda doing this

turn off, turn on thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: I was trying to find the

summit I think we're 20 something

summits in on my own on this

particular one in, in the dark.

And I just couldn't find I of

all people I know the top and

never better than anybody.

I can't not,

Speaker 2: yeah.

Speaker: I've, I've ascended the thing

now something like fucking a hundred

times easily and, and I'm looking at

this thing and I can't see, I can't see.

There's the, the trick point itself,

which is obviously where else summit,

there's also something they eventually,

they renamed the COVID COVID Cave,

which is a little hot that's there.

So if I can factor in, I could

see that, which means the trig

point should be around about here.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And that's,

that's what I was nav off.

You can't, there's no, I mean,

I don't know where I am, so I

can't find it, you know, so Okay.

I'll find it, but I've obviously

missed it and I've gone back, oh

fuck, I need to come back again now.

Whereas I can't even see.

And so this went on for about an

hour and I didn't know where I was.

And I, and I've stopped at one

point and done that kind of, ah,

for fuck's sake little moment.

Yeah.

And in doing so, and knocked my own

head torch off and it landed at my feet.

So I ben down the picked.

And as I've picked it up, it's flipped

and I've realised that, that half my

feet are hanging off a, a sheer drop.

So it was pure luck that my, my head torch

came off and, and pure luck that when I've

picked it off, it's flipped enough to give

me, 'cause again, the visibility was maybe

a foot and, and I'm, I'm dangling if I'd

tipped my feet forward, it had just gone.

'cause there are, you know, and I was

fucking miles from the tra point as well.

Yeah.

I was like, why the fuck am I here?

How long

Speaker 2: did it take

you to get back to the tra

Speaker: point?

Oh, I mean, I laid down and

kind of crawled backwards

for scratches on my back.

I'm sheer rock and my heart

rate through the roof.

So that was one that

was really very close.

And there's two, two or three other

incidents where it's just pure.

A good friend of mine came up and he,

and I was telling him this story after

it happened, and I'm still up there.

He says, heaven earth,

can you get lost up here?

After having done it

like 20 something times.

I was like, mate, how many times

did you get up in the middle of

the night to go for a piss in your

dark bedroom and you crack yourself

off your own dressing table?

Yeah.

You know, when you don't

know your own bedroom.

Yeah.

I'm on the top of a mountain.

Yeah.

For the third time that day.

Absolutely.

Knackered pitch black and, and it's,

it's a, it's a, a dangerous landscape

and you think that I'm a fucking moron.

Op would find a big point.

The moronic thing is being here.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: So there, there's a few kind

of instances that beyond that it was

just like you know, I, I know the

mountains so so well, but because it's

in the dark and, and then the conditions

change, it's just getting lost and Yeah.

And getting lost can be lethal.

Heads of girls, when

Speaker 2: you talked your head

torch and you decided what,

what went through your mind?

Speaker: Just fuck.

Just a pure, pure jam.

I mean, on the way back down I

found a trigger point and got off

the mountain as quick as I could.

That, and I got lost through.

That was just a horrendous, that that was

the longest summit of, of all of them.

I think.

It took me, you know, from, from

the, the, the top of the switchbacks

is then where you kinda, you,

you head over to the very top.

There's just ways of breaking

it down in, in my head.

And that part took three hours to

get to the top and maybe another two

and a half to get back down again.

And that should be an hour all

in the pace I was moving in.

So, but just, just not panic or

anything, just, you know, I'm just lucky.

Just fuck.

And then, then how lucky am I?

And then so, so coming down there

was a lot of introspection and a

lot of counting blessings went on.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

Speaker: But that was, I mean, that

was most of the time was blessing.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Yeah.

I bet.

I bet.

Well, yeah, you had some pretty mad stuff.

Is there anything else in the pipeline?

Speaker: There's a few things

that I've been toying with and

been relatively public about.

I don't want anybody to take it away from

me, but I, I think I've got the fastest

known time cross Iceland in the bag.

I in the bag.

That's ridiculous thing.

So I've not even tried it yet, but

I think I, I think I can do it.

It's currently I believe

18 days longitudinally.

I think I can do that and it's,

it's, it's a, it's a challenge

that I, I, I'd be interesting.

So the fastest long time cross ice

would be very interesting to be what,

Speaker 2: what time of

year will you do it though?

Speaker: In, in the summer?

Yeah.

Anything else would be madness.

Speaker 2: I, this is you though.

So we had to ask the question.

I

Speaker: had to ask.

So I, I do it completely self supported

and, and go out there early and lay

some cashs down and, and all the rest

of it and, and, and do it like that.

And I think I could do it.

I'm interested in that.

I've got a. Do you know the,

the, the Bob Graham and the

Charlie Ramsey these rounds?

Yeah.

So the Charlie Ramsey's, the

one in Scotland, which is

kind of around the mountains.

I love specifically in in Lock Aber

and, and a couple of the memoirs

and things up there where it's a 20

for anybody who doesn't know, it's

it's a, it's a round of, I believe

there's actually something like 32

mountains in it in total to summit.

Obviously not coming down.

You, you, you're crossing

the peaks on some of them.

But the challenge is to try

and do that within 24 hours.

Something that I've done before is

to lift the, I'm very proud of this.

I've lifted the Denny Stones and it says I

Speaker 2: saw.

Yeah,

Speaker: yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: Brilliant.

Speaker: Talk about that

all day long if you want.

I'm very proud of that.

It's a very Scottish thing as well.

So lifting the Denny Stones now with

permission if they could bring the Denny

Stones to the beginning of the Charlie

Ramsey round, I think it'd be cool

as fuck to lift the Denny's and then

run that at the very Scottish thing.

I think for me, this would be the

kinda thing I'd like to, I don't want

pats on the back or, or, or fame or

any of that bullshit, but it would be

quite nice to think in 20 years time

somebody in a pub goes, goes, I'm that

gonna call Johnny Pen, who lifted the

Denny's hand each other on the cmd.

You know, that, that'd be cool.

You know, just a little bit of pub lore.

Yeah.

So I'd like to do that.

'cause it would be, that would

be very, going back to the, the

methodology and, and, and the philosophy

they've got of all these things.

It would be a show of, of of,

of real strength and then a show

of real endurance back to back.

But, but on a, on a grand scale,

in, in, in an extraordinary

setting, I'd love to do that.

So, and there's again, very personal

things and I, and think I'd like to go

back to if you'd asked me three weeks

even ago, I think I'd have said no.

But I'd like to go back and, and

attack the spine maybe with a different

mindset and, and a different setup.

I, I think I could complete that.

And over and above that I've got

ideas, very, very cool ideas to me,

which I'll tell you about off camera.

'cause Sony will steal this.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: World's first polar exploration

something that's never been done before

that, that I've conceived of, that I

think people will be very interested in.

And I'd love to do, but that'd

be a year or so out in my life.

Let's see if that comes off.

I need some money though.

Speaker 2: Love.

We'll support you as best we can.

Speaker: Yeah,

Speaker 2: and you, you've got some

brilliant companies that do support you.

Gary, through DA are big advocates

of, of Mr. Johnny Payne, aren't they?

Speaker: They've been brilliant

Speaker 2: to me.

They're, they're phenomenal.

Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Brilliant.

Yeah.

Incredible.

Massive shout out to

stars Louie, in the theme.

Speaker: Yeah.

Stars and Louie have built

something really wonderful there.

And, and, and from the very start of 2018,

I got involved with him and helped them.

I was honoured to be able to help them

through the, the Scottish leg of, of

Frankie Tinsleys talisman Project, which

was an extraordinary project in of itself.

It's mind blowing that he did that.

And we've had a very close

relationship ever since then.

So they they, they look

after me very, very well.

Elliot Brown as well, who, who, who

you know very well, have looked after

me contact coffee have looked after

me, and you guys have looked after me.

And I'm, I'm very, very fortunate

to be involved with some, some

brands, which you can pick all

those out and, and, and ask why.

And, and it's, it's the, the,

the, the, the love that they give.

It's, it's not the I mean the products

are fucking amazing o otherwise

it'd be hard to, hard to go out and

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And say, yeah, I use

this and then go away, use

something completely different.

So the, the products are generally

amazing with all those brands, but the

every one of them has invited me in

and looked after me as an individual.

And, and,

Speaker 2: you know,

Speaker: I've never had a, Hey, why aren't

you promoting the brand in this way?

It's it's always, how are you Johnny?

Which, which is massive to me.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Always.

And it's, I think every company

you've mentioned there, I'm friends

with them, some more than others,

but everybody has that same mindset.

Like it's the people, people come

first, you know, we're not, again,

it's great to promote your brand and

do what we can, but how are you as a

person, what can we do to support you?

Yeah.

Because, you know, it's, it's nice

to be able to support good people

without expectation or any, you've

gotta do this, you've gotta do that.

And it's just, it makes, makes

everything a better place, doesn't it?

Speaker: I'm very much an advocate of you.

And I talked about it before you were

talking actually, I think with Tom,

before you left earlier on Tom Collins.

And, and, and we were.

Talking about the, the, the reason

you might do something for somebody.

And, and there's different

ways of doing that.

There's this kinda common

barter where somebody might do

something to get something back.

And that's very normal,

very, you know, very base.

But the brands and, and you guys

and, and yourself especially by being

really good embodying what I believe

is the right way to work is to, if,

if you're gonna do something, I always

say this Tony, lead, lead with love.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Do it from the place of

giving, you know, and if you're

going to give somebody something,

give something of yourself.

Whether it's advice, whether

it's time, whether it's products,

whether it's opportunity.

It shouldn't necessarily be to, and, and

what I want back is, I think if you can

sit in that more sort of divine economy

approach and, and say, listen, I'll

give, you know, and, and that is what

will, the universe will reciprocate.

Yeah.

This is what we can do to support you.

It's hard to stick to that support and

Speaker 2: something

will come back at some

Speaker: point.

Yeah, yeah.

Because it's, yeah.

People, people don't buy into that enough.

And they don't wanna hijack your

podcast, make it into the kind of

a spiritual journey for anybody.

But that these, these are the

lessons I've learned over time.

And, and you know, I, I feel now I've

had it just recently, I've had it

with my previous business that the.

The blame for things going wrong can be,

well, he did this, she did that, they did

that, and that and all the rest of it.

But it usually comes down if you, if

you dig a little deeper to alignment

with self and, and with you know, what

it is that you're trying to project.

And I think when I, when I align, when

I, when I sit in that properly and

when I'm trying to be about giving

as much as I can, I, I talk about

my job as being I'm very blessed

to have the job that I've got.

'cause all I'm doing is I

get the opportunity to, to

facilitate joy for others.

So if you have a challenge, might

be an ultra marathon, might be a

fight, might be whatever, you know,

might be military aspirations.

And again, you fit for

that particular role.

If I have an opportunity to, to

offer advice, offer guidance.

And that helps you get to that goal.

And I have facilitated joy, in which

case I'm in a very blessed position.

If I start looking at that as how

much money can I get for that thing?

How much can I do this?

What's my promotional capabilities?

What's, what do I, how famous

I'm gonna get off the back of it.

What's my Instagram follows?

Then I've lost sight of

what I'm there for at all.

Absolutely.

Every time I start focusing on

those things, shit goes wrong.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And every time

I go do, you know what?

Get back to the centre, get back

to the base, get back to that kinda

more, you know, spiritual stuff.

Absolutely.

I'm not talking about God.

I'm talking with something that's very,

it should be intrinsic in all of us.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

When

Speaker: I, when I focus

back in on that, and you've

embodied that really beautifully

recently and thank you for that.

The welcome back to Combat Fuel

after I'd been kind of drifting boat

a little bit has been been amazing.

When you see that in practise and,

and do it yourself, everything

falls into a layman If you

don't believe that, try harder.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Are we allowed to touch on that quickly?

On on,

Speaker: yeah.

Yeah.

I, I'll shout it's a little bit of the

military I shy away from because I think

people don't want hear you getting old.

No, I'm not particularly woo

about it, but I just have some

Speaker 2: news.

So, so at one point I was watching, so

you were us for a little while before and

another so brand came along and were able

to offer you a good amount of money and

it was, you know, you carried, you like,

look, they've done this and offer me this.

And I was like, you'd be

an idiot not to take it.

Yeah.

You know, we we're not a huge brand

without naming them 'cause don't go

and buy that stuff, but grenades is

something you throw just saying and shit.

But yeah, you got four kids.

Yeah.

A previous business hadn't worked

out how you wanted it to do.

Like, and I always think like, you know,

your priority has to be your family.

It can't be your mate be

who's making some supplements.

So you gotta put food on the table and

put a roof over your family's head.

And you did that and it was a

year, year or so contracting.

It's come for renewal.

And I remember noticing it and Leah was,

she's like, got Jonathan Payne that's

ordered in Scotland and like we, we

sell a lot to Scotland, but Jonathan

Payne is like, it is one of them names.

Like they stick out it, not many

people called Jonathan Payne.

And I was like, do not send his order.

And she was like.

Remember feeling like, oh

God, do we not like him?

I was like, I was at an event

and I was like, no, it's that.

I was like we gotta write him a letter.

I was like, just to reassure him, he knows

that there's a space at our table always.

And I told him the second, he said, like,

Speaker: I

Speaker 2: cried

Speaker: when I got that though.

It was

Speaker 2: good.

And yeah, no, it's a genuine,

literally just said, you know,

like, like, awesome, awesome.

You went and spent your own hard

earned money on our products.

And that to me, like when he

said that, I was like, oh my God.

Like that's, you know, like I always

thought in a bit of me, like, I'm

sure one day J want to come back

once he's got his business sorted.

And, and I British, I said to her, I was

like, I just need you to write on there.

Just simply, there's always a seat

at our table for Johnny Payne.

Speaker: Yeah, mate.

And it was, it really hit, it was the

right time to get the letter and it

was the right time to, to hear it.

And yeah.

And you know, it was a beautiful thing,

you know, not, not to make this a loving,

but it was, it was a beautiful thing.

It, there's something interesting in

it as well, going back to that kind of

common barter, various versus this divine

economy that I, I'm referring to, which

is a, a concept that bore everybody.

So we'll not go into it,

but the you are right.

We, we were working together and, and,

and you guys were looking after me from

a supplement perspective and we were,

you know, scratching each other's backs.

And then this other company came in and

said, listen, we'll pay you this, you

know, and it was, it was a fucking, it was

enough to make you go, oh, alright then.

But looking back on it,

it was the wrong choice.

Now it did it again.

I was in a, a business predicament.

The, the money had dropped back from me.

I needed to make money.

But it, it removed me from that

alignment for a year, you know, and

I you know, God bless those people

that, you know, they were on their own

journey, but I didn't feel, this is the

softest thing I, I'm ever about to say.

I didn't feel seen there.

They, they were, they were trying to

ask me to do very scripted things.

Yeah.

Which told me they don't know me at all.

They don't know who I am.

And it was very uncomfortable.

I tried to fulfil it.

I wasn't very good at fulfilling it.

That particular relationship broke down

or, or the, the contract wasn't renewed.

And, and I feel like I, you know,

no wonder, you know, I, I wasn't

aligned that it was wasted the end

and I wish I hadn't done it because

it felt the whole time uncomfortable

and it was compromising to me.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And I've, I made that mistake.

And then you guys have sent a letter

saying, you, you are always welcome here,

which is beautiful to be welcome back.

And I've, I've made that mistake

since, you know, I've gone on an

opportunity to work with a company.

Recently that I have been working with,

didn't particularly like the, the ethos

didn't particularly like the way it

was run, but needed to put a bit of

money back in after having had some,

some business issues and and whatnot.

Eight, nine months down, down the

road, that relationship's broken down.

I've had to walk away and I

kinda look back and think, do you

know what, what you did, mate?

This is me talking to me.

Which is the wrong thing.

Again, you've seen the numbers

thought, well, that'll fulfil a,

a, a yeah, a, a need that you have.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: But that's removed me from

myself, removed the opportunity to be

true to myself, which I could have, you

know, and I'm back at square one and now

that I'm aligned again, I'm back here

with you guys, I come down the journey

down here speaking to people on the phone

about it and saying, look, you know, this

is the first time in a long time I've

been excited to come and see people from

a work, a work perspective, because I'm

coming to see people I met FRA today.

Yeah.

Immediately warm guy, you know?

Yeah.

This is, this is where I need to be.

Whereas, you know, beforehand

I wasn't feeling that.

So this, it's about alignment, but

when I look at it, it's because

I was making the wrong choices.

You know?

I was making choices based on fear,

based on panic and based on necessity.

And you can look at that go where you

need to pay the bills and say, yeah,

but do you need to pay them this way?

Probably the answer is probably no.

Speaker 2: And I get,

yeah, I completely get it.

I've done it as well.

Like, I've, contrary to people

that know me personally, been like

I've never earned in a long time.

So little money, and I mean,

combat fuel's doing great.

It's doing really well, but I'm

like the least I've ever earned and

I'm sometimes like, shit, maybe I

should be a bit careful of what I'm

doing, but I'm like, I don't care.

I'm happy.

I've got enough to have a roof over

my head feed, enjoy some stuff.

You know, I've got no kids, I don't,

I've got holy jogging bombs on.

And so if there's any clothing companies

out there, like, no, I'm joking.

But you know, like, but I'm so

happy I'm surrounded with people

that I'd like, they, they give

me fulfilment, like, you know.

Yeah.

Have new back here.

Having Fraser Fraser, I don't think

we've said this on the podcast before.

Speaker: Alright,

Speaker 2: this is actually

gonna be a nice thing.

He thinks I'm gonna take the Mick and he

doesn't know what I'm wanna say every.

That's always been bad.

Fraser messaged me he's

had his own issues.

I had a gym in Andover, tiny, like

600 square foot I think it was.

He sent me a text being,

oh, I'm a veteran.

I'm like, poor me.

And I was down at a meeting

somewhere else and I was like, I

go, these guys were like gonna meet.

And I was like, don't matter veteran.

See you later.

I went up, went to my gym in

Andover, met him this little

bull dwarf, and I was like,

Speaker: I still hair

Speaker 2: there.

And I was just like this is what we do.

This is what we're about.

This is a community we have.

I was like, please don't go, come back,

meet as c. You know, he had some personal

stuff going on and here we are now.

This is 2019, wasn't it?

We're 2020 just pre COVID and

post COVID, and it's six and

a bit years down the line.

And he's now our podcast producer.

The weekend we've just slept

in my car filming an event.

Like, shit, you snore

at night, by the way.

Yeah.

Look

Speaker: at you.

Speaker 2: I don't snor, I don snore.

And, but that's, you know, people

coming together and, and doing

stuff and being surrounded by good

people and it's, it's phenomenal.

You and Tom are gonna go and

chat away and do some stuff.

You know, you should always, if

you can help, you should help.

There's nothing wrong with saying

no to people like someone are Sorry.

No, I can't do that.

Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

You gotta look after yourself,

but, but you should be for

the right reasons, you know,

Speaker 2: but yeah, absolutely.

And it's, yeah,

Speaker: self-protection is a, a a a, a

big, you know, couple of words and you,

you need to make sure you, you protect

your own boundaries and stuff, which

is something I've not been very good at

doing in the past either, but I still

think you need, it needs to come from

Speaker 2: Yeah,

Speaker: absolutely.

Speaker 2: And

Speaker: I think what you

get value, you'll get back.

There's so many traits saying so

many songs written about and all the

rest of it, but what's that phrase?

22 million Elvis fans can't be wrong.

It's got, it's, it's

gotta be right, isn't it?

And, and, and it's, it's proven to me

over and over again and the embarrassing

part is having to learn a lesson again.

But I think that's just a, an an

infinite cycle of kind of coming out.

Actually, we talked about it from

a business perspective earlier on.

Your business will get to a threshold

point, you know, and then you'll burst

through that threshold, and then you're

smaller in a bigger pond, don't you?

You're like, oh God.

And it's panic again.

'cause you, that white belt mentality

is like, no, I'm the white belt again.

But that's a fucking

brilliant place to be.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: You know, and, and so this,

this applies the same with this

kinda stuff is like, I'm, I'm making

mistakes, learning lessons, making

mistakes and learning lessons, but

as long as each lesson compounds

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: And, and as long as I'm

drawn back, which I am, and, and,

and you've been part of that guidance

mate, it's, it's to bring me back to

that kind of lead with love and, and

go both what your heart is then, then,

we'll, we're all good, aren't we?

Yeah.

Speaker 2: I'm gonna be properly

selfish now and talk about combat fuel.

I mean,

Speaker: please do me.

Yeah.

Speaker 2: It's been your

podcast, but we're filming it,

so we've got a bit, some bit.

It's

Speaker: shit.

But I'm glad you paid me.

Speaker 2: So if you could just

tell everyone like that you

use everything religiously.

You never deviate from anything

like, you know, and that's a, we

don't do all, do, you know, product

do what you want with it, you know?

Well that we have no pressure

to, you've got to do this many

posts, this many stories a week.

If you don't do it, you're,

you're off the team.

It's Well,

Speaker: and there, there's, there's, the

other part of it is, is the honesty in it.

So, so the two, the two things I said

about branding earlier on was that I,

I'm not going to, I, I I, apart from

the fact that I want to actually use

products that work but we've talked

about the things that have been doing.

They need to work.

You know, it's very, when we're talking

about actual kit and stuff, you know.

Yeah.

So.

What's been really, really cool

about combat fuel for me is that

exactly as you've just said, it's

like, okay, Johnny, here, here's,

here's what we can offer you.

Use what you would use.

Let us know what you need, and

then let us know how you feel.

You know?

And every other brand I've worked with,

including the, the ones I was just

talking about, have said, these are

the products we want you to talk about.

Yeah.

This is what we want

you to say about them.

This is the use.

What's, what's the phrase?

This phrase you guys go, the the use case.

Yeah.

For it, you know, to the fact that,

you know, one of the big arguments

was on Nevis, I was supposed to be

saying that such and such a product was

fueling my, my, and I was like, protein

shakes are not fueling this fucking No.

You know, if, if anything,

it's actually just, you know,

distracted me from eating properly.

So Yeah.

I'm not gonna fucking say that.

Which is proves the point, doesn't it?

Whereas you guys have just said,

look, have a look at the product list.

Here's, here's what it is.

And you and I had a very long

conversation the first time we met

about your involvement in that, in

that process and how much you know, and

how passionate you are about what goes

into and, and what people can get from.

Yeah.

Which in of itself, it's

actually really unique.

I don't dunno how unique, you know,

that is, but it, but it fucking is.

Yeah.

And so I, I, I think we've

actually picked out some of the

stuff that, that I genuinely use.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

One of the key bits is is clarity.

You know, it, it is a lions

made mushroom product and rodeo.

Something that you are like I

just, just trust me on this.

You know, not wanting to push anything

on you to try first, like, you

honestly give it a go and give us,

Speaker: I didn't want to be.

Speaker 2: And you didn't.

You

Speaker: didn't.

I didn't.

It was, it was, it was Leah put a, a

message on, on our kinda ambassadors group

and stuff saying, give us a go folks.

And I know you'd said about it as well.

For me, the, the products I'm always

gonna push hardest against are the ones

that suggest optimization, which in of

itself to me is just a bollocks nonsense.

It's another, it's

another, you know, buzzword

Speaker 2: marketing,

Speaker: shit, marketing

bollocks, you know, 'cause

you're not optimising anything.

Actually, sometimes the idea of

optimising then the optimizers,

if that's even a word.

Yeah.

You know, you got this kind of whole

nonsense about pushing back on coffee.

Oh, well why didn't you

take this product now?

No, I, I like my coffee.

So that's part of my routine.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Why don't you fuck off.

So, so the clarity one for me is

like, well, what are we saying it

does, are we saying that it, it's

going switch you on a little bit more?

Isn't that gonna be down to, this

is the way my mind's working.

Yeah.

Isn't that gonna be down to kind of

recovery and, and all the rest of it?

And I, you know, as we talked

about earlier on I'm a performance

nutritionist and I understand nutrition.

I understand what, but I'm very much

a a, a, a foundational, get the bones

of the thing right first, you know,

and, and these cherries on top almost

don't exist for anybody anyway.

Yeah.

But long story short, with a little bit

of nudging, you know, I've tried that

clarity and I fucking blew my mind.

I was like, this shit is working.

I was kind of buzzing off and I said

to you earlier on day one, taking it

I, I also had my coffee in the morning.

I'm like, is it just if

I just had a good coffee?

I just did a good place today.

So I did it the next day.

And this is very unusual for me at Gotham.

I didn't have my coffee.

I thought, I'll try that.

I'll get into work, see

what I've got going on, and.

I've said a couple of times, it was mind

blowing and I was buzzing, but I wasn't

actually, I just felt clear, felt queer.

Rod all is a a, a an old Russians

used to take it fucking years

and years and years back.

And it was one of those kind

of things that was looked at

as Oh yeah, bollocks again.

I said 22 million Elvis

fans can't be wrong.

Yeah.

But these guys were taking it

as part of their you know, stack

this kinda her stack and stuff.

And there's all these

purported things come from it.

But as an adaptogen you are looking

at it, you going, well, how much can

you, can you clearly say it's doing?

And that's one I've always believed in.

Funny enough, rodeos, you're in there

like, alright, okay, let's go for it.

Yeah.

Took it.

Yeah.

Feel good.

And it isn't a sales pitch either.

Genuinely feel good.

It's very rare for me to go, this

is now something I will take.

Speaker 2: Pretty sure.

When, when we'd done it and we, we'd

said to all, all of the athletes,

which was, you know, we have to

tell you when to take a product.

'cause you know, there's no point in

saying, oh, here's a power to try.

It's a free workout.

Have it at eight o'clock at night.

But so we said, you know, upon Wakings,

as soon as you can have your three

capsules and just tell us how you feel.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And that's the only

information we gave anyone.

We explained like the standardisation,

why the ingredients are so good

in there because loads of brands

do lions, but of course they do.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Not one brand still

to this day, I've seen has put

the standardisation on their tub.

You probably check right on b

Glucan contents through the roof.

Most brands it would be, you know,

when we started looking and like

we had, we had distributors of raw

ingredients being, oh, we got this,

this, this, what's you saying?

Oh, we don't have a standardisation.

It's just a hundred

percent fruit and volume.

Yeah, that's like saying, is your

sugar a hundred percent sugar?

Like, yeah.

Cool.

Cheers mate.

Speaker: How much is

Speaker 2: that?

Speaker: What,

Speaker 2: what's the thing that does

the thing and the, the thing ours is

50% and 25% solu side to belu content.

Most brands, it'd be

non-trad, nont traceable.

It is wild.

The easiest way I can describe it as tea.

We're having an ice brew,

a good quality brew.

If you rip your tea bagg in

half and if it's all black and

very fine, that's really good.

That's just tea leaves.

If you start opening it and it's

a bit thick, there's bits of

brown in there, bits of stalk, bit

stalk, doesn't taste of anything.

You've not got a pure good tea.

There's doing the the

thing to make a nice brew.

That is,

Speaker: yeah.

Speaker 2: And it's, yeah.

And, and that's why it works so well.

And obviously the rodeo is what gives

you the feel good and it's, yeah, I think

it's an absolutely phenomenal product.

Really, really proud of

Speaker: it.

I genuinely do mate.

Genuinely do.

And you know, and it's,

it's seen every day now.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker: Apart from this morning

because I forgot to bring any

Speaker 2: Oh, there you go.

Speaker: Fell down.

So I'll take a, i'll, I'll pocket a few

to take tomorrow morning before we come

back in here, but that's genuinely,

genuinely a good product, mate.

Well done.

Speaker 2: Good.

Thank you very much.

Where can people find you?

Speaker: In the pub

Speaker 2: somewhere in Scotland.

Speaker: I'll be, I'll be the one

that's drunken the Guinness Instagram's

easiest place at, at Jonathan Payne.

Or though you just search up Johnny

Payne, you, you probably find me that way.

I have just literally just built

a website, which 80% please with

feedback's been good as in it works.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

That's all

Speaker: I,

Speaker 2: and again,

I just still watch now.

And you need to find it.

And you don't want to Google

it, like scroll down in the is

that a comment or description?

In a description.

And there'll be a link in there.

You

Speaker: can get in.

Thank

Speaker 2: you.

It, yeah.

Yeah.

Always, always.

Speaker: Yeah.

Just painless performance.

That's the brand I've, I've always

gone under for years and years.

That's me is painless performance.

Yeah.

You be able find it that way.

Dot, call it uk but if you yeah,

if you get a put on Brilliant.

So at Jonathan or that website.

Speaker 2: Brilliant, awesome stuff

Speaker: in the hills somewhere.

Speaker 2: Piece of advice

for your younger self.

Speaker: I've, I've actually

given it already, haven't I?

Is just, just be true

to yourself, you know?

And, and something I've talked

about many, many years, for

many, many years is, is fear.

And the power of fear.

And, and the, the gold that's

in it, you know, if, if, if,

if it scares you, lean into it.

You know?

Jeff Thompson mentioned earlier, has

really good phrases, marinate in the

fear and lean into the sharp edge.

It's very normal, like, like normal, as

in it's probably a natural reaction to,

to be afraid of something then step back.

Now, obviously don't be afraid of a

moving train and step forward or anything.

Yeah.

But most things that frighten

you are probably opportunities.

I think it took me a long

time to figure that out.

And it was good because

that's part of the journey.

But having known that earlier would've

been a good thing, just to really

appreciate what that means when you

get that prickly feeling that, oh

God, it's probably an opportunity.

So lean into that.

But I think anything, the advice

I'm giving to my kids now, it's

never, it's never gonna be, make

sure you get a good corporate job

and pay your taxes and this thing.

That's not it.

It's always be true to yourself.

Lead with love and, and

do do the best you can.

You've

Speaker 2: only got one life.

There ain't no repeats or restarts of it.

That's

Speaker: it.

That's it.

And, and that as long as you are

doing that leading with love, then

the rest should work its way out,

because that should come back.

I, I do believe the universe

is a reciprocal place.

Yeah.

If you put it out there,

it'll come back to you.

It's hard to believe that.

Agree.

The proof is in the pudding.

Speaker 2: Absolutely.

Abso,

thank you very much for coming down again.

Thank you for your service.

You signed on the dotted line and did it.

Thank you for being a part of our family.

Thank you.