[English] Brandon Hepburn - Former member of the GBR Kayak Team, Personal Trainer - Getting into action and regaining control of our lives

Brandon don't waste time like just take action on things literally ask yourself this like you could literally pause this podcast and ask yourself a quick question what needs to change and every day you wake up you have the opportunity to change your life doesn't have to be big but you've got to take some action because you've got to take responsibility for your own life because no one else is going to do it for you

Loïc Hello, hello, it's Loic Blanchard, the creator and host of the independent podcast Les Frappés. I'm a former sportive of high level, now converted into sportive aventureux, but also entrepreneur, coach and certified preparer. Passionate of outdoor and of the field of all genres, I wanted to create a community I have been working on the values of resilience, of advancement and determination in you offering every week conversations inspiring with incredible guests from different universes. I received as well as Olympic athletes as entrepreneurs success, professional athletes or even the former forces special. Their common point, the passion for their project and the courage to get to the launch. All together, discover my guest of the week. Excellent listen to you, Les Frappés.

Brandon so welcome brendan on the podcast thank you buddy appreciate it appreciate it we'll get it

Loïc we'll nail it this time yes yes so the background story here is that we we start talking and i forget to press recording so my bad so as i was saying earlier i'm really happy brendan that you you took the time to be with us today, live from Dubai, to share a bit of your story, your background, and what you're actually doing today. As you know, on the podcast, we talk a lot about resilience and mindset. So I'm pretty sure there will be exciting stuff that you can share with us. But yeah, without saying too much, maybe we can start with that. What's your story? Yeah, 100% man.

Brandon No, thank you for bringing the time on as well. So it's cool. So yeah, probably from like, I guess my story kind of started from, I guess you could go all the way back to childhood, but we won't bother. I had a very lovely upbringing. I was raised in like a small town, well, a small village. I think there was like 50 kids in my whole school, which was crazy. So it was very, I was very much a countryside boy, a bit of a farmer's boy. Parents have always bred dogs, had horses all the way through my life, even up until now. So I was always horse riding at a young age. And it kind of got to a point where I think I was about eight or nine where my parents officially split up. And my mum moved quite close to the river and she was asked to take over a stable yard there and to run that. So we did that. Me and my sister and her all lived together, um just riding competing and things like that and then because we were quite close to the river my mom was like oh let's i want to get on the water and i was like yeah that's cool might fit me being like 11 years old thinking she's gonna go buy some jet skis and some speed boats um didn't happen like that sadly so she came back with two really old kayaks um and they were like dusty sandy like spider webs and i was just like this sucks like as an 11 year old kid i was like this is rubbish um and then honestly from there so it turned out the guy a couple of that couple of doors down um used to be a very competitive kayaker um and he was like i think he saw us just flapping around on the water and he was like oh i'll teach you to do some things and generally that was it that was it so from then he taught me to kind of do the basics and he was with me for a long time um and then it popped around right i kind of was all right i was all right and someone said oh you should go like try out for the national team and i was like no that's stupid right that's ridiculous um so i think i was 14 at the time so i was like kayaking on and off and playing rugby up until 11 until 14 and then i turned out i actually made it i actually made the national squad at 14 um so i was like impressive i was like oh all right so what do we do now and that was kind of bit. And then from there, probably one of my biggest insecurities has been like, I was really bad at school. I'm pretty dyslexic. So like reading and writing, I probably only got good at maybe in the last, if I'm honest, probably the last year now that my job is technically social media where I have to write a little bit more. So probably reading and writing up until probably early twenties was always a bit of a tricky one. So I failed school pretty badly. I love school, had good friends and I enjoy sport there but I failed it pretty badly so I was traveling competing all throughout my secondary school so from like 11 to 16 roughly um went to world championships European championships um I was a British champion all this sort of stuff so I was like screw it I don't really need school ended up going to college for a bit dropped out of that ended up going to university in America dropped out of that so anything academic I'm not very good at um but yeah that's kind of like that was kind of my kayaking background and that led me into fitness what I am today really I kind of got to like 18 to 20 years old where I love kayaking to this day I still do and I adore it but I just lost that spark for it I just lost that boom and when I kind of got to 18 with kayaking I had to start going to the gym because I was competing against big boys now um so as soon as you're 18 that's it you're in with the big boys and you're with the adults so i was like these guys are strong they're fast all this sort of stuff so i was like right i better start going to the gym didn't have really monkeys what i was doing and um i ended up being picked up by a supplement company at the time that sponsored me through my kayaking i went to do a photo shoot for them for their website and all this sort of stuff and like everyone there was in really good shape really good shape and i was like what do these people do like what are these what do you do and all of them were like uh like bodybuilders or like uh I guess like uh fitness models all this sort of stuff and I was like so that's a job like that's a job like you actually get paid to do that sort of stuff and they're obviously personal trainers on the side as well and I just turned around I was like I'm gonna do that like you get paid to look good and you get paid to help people and things like that I'm gonna do that so honestly I kind of started pting for a selfish reason because I was falling out of love with kayaking and I kind of just wanted like the only thing I was good at was sport and fitness so I kind of was like from a selfish reason I didn't I think not many people say it but I didn't really care about the coaching side of it back then I just needed to bring fulfillment into my own life um and that was it I did the course and the rest was history really and ever since then I've just been chasing this fitness journey and um continuously evolving myself and others and now I'm in a position now where I coach hundreds of people around the world and just continuously trying to progress my own fitness as well. So that's kind of it, really.

Loïc Awesome. Great story. Well, I guess the first question for me is, you know, you mentioned this fire that might not have been burning in the end for kayaking as strongly as in the beginning. but you also said in the beginning that when you saw your mother coming back with you know with you know those two kayaks that might not have looked like uh jet skis for you at the time um you you i didn't have i didn't have the feeling the feeling that you were excited about it so i'm wondering you know when did the flame started to burn for kayaking for you um i think

Brandon I think the actual freedom of it is what I loved so when you're on the water and you're you're just you're almost like that typical thing you're in the elements like there was parts where like I went to Uganda I went to Canada I went to all these amazing places in the world and sometimes you just sat there on the water in the middle of nowhere and you're like this is pretty cool um and I generally enjoyed the community was amazing I enjoyed the competitive side of it and I think it was one of those things when you start to see results you enjoy it more so when you start getting good at something you like you love it and it's a bit like fitness as soon as you lose the first five pounds you're like oh okay cool and then when you start to get stronger and you start to feel that bit more muscle you get addicted to it um and that was it really like there was no real I think the flame thing was probably just eight years later sort of thing but there's no really like if someone said get back in the boat now and i like if someone go go try out for the team again i'll be like yeah 100 i'll give it a go why not i love it i think i just love fitness and bodyboarding more now that's all all right

Loïc cool and so well you you made it to the nationals pretty early i mean i don't know actually is it

Brandon early 14 in this yeah i think i think i was in a weird era there was quite a few youngsters like quite a few of us at a young age did pretty good then um and it was quite a high standard but yeah I guess I think 14 is quite young for anything really any kind of like achievement like a bit like when you get picked like footballers when they get picked at 14 years old you're gonna play for Arsenal and things like that and you're like Jesus like really um and I think that's kind of it it's one of those I think it's one of those sports like nowadays like you have to start young with a lot of stuff like if you look to I know a few dancers that are really high up and things like that and they start dancing and doing gymnastics and things like that when they're like six years old and I'm like it's crazy but then sometimes like you see it around kind of the 16 to 18 year old range where you know girls boys drink alcohol and all this sort of stuff starts to kick in and they can kind of just go into a different direction which is absolutely fine but who's to say at six years old that you're truly passionate and you love this because I used to love Action Man when I was six years old as well. I mean, so it's a hard thing, I think, at a young age to be like, is this your future? And you see it with a lot of professional sports. I think you can look at anything from NBA players and NFL players. They're at college and then they get drafted to be on a professional team at 21 years old. And you're like, mate, 21, like to be paid that much at that standard to be a national icon like you don't even know yourself at 21 exactly so i think i think kind of that 20 to 30 range is where you do a lot of self-evaluating a lot of learning about yourself

Loïc so yeah yeah we talk that's something we mention a lot with my guests um who evolved you know in sports at some level it's this identity thing um because i'm also coming from a um like high level sports background and so like you at 14 i was in the national team in judo you know in martial art and um and basically what i really struggled with and that's gonna be my question for you then uh is um you know once i dropped out uh the struggle was to answer okay who am i now you know i've spent the last five six eight probably yeah when i dropped out 10 years actually doing mainly that I think at the age of 15 or 16 I missed like almost three months of school because I was you know traveling the world for events competitions and sort of common like trainings you know with other nations yeah so that's a lot of commitment so I'm actually wondering since you said you know that school was not yeah that you were not like exiting at school what was the impact for you joining the nationals at 14 in terms of identity and self-confidence yes a really

Brandon good question i think at the end of the day like um school is what i would never regret it because like i am where i am now because i failed school right and things like that and i i don't regret it either i've been nice to get some more c's and b's but at the end of the day like no one cares either um if someone wants my cv i can just make it up as well no one's gonna check those results um but i think the biggest thing at kind of doing anything at that age is or any age you get defined by potentially a name or a reputation and that all that's what you think you get labeled for it's like like your friends going up and oh you're the you're the judo go right and people are like well no I'm actually Brandon whatever it is like I a sport or something doesn't define who you are I think when you are in that situation that is your identity you live and breathe it you don't know anything different you wake up thinking about it you wake up go to bed dreaming about it you eat for it you drink for it the reason I'm drinking water right now is because I've got a training tomorrow and things like that like everything you do revolves around what you do on a day-to-day basis so it is your identity but it's making sure that you're it it doesn't it doesn't control who you are that makes sense so it's like people be like oh you're the fitness guy now or you're the you're the bodybuilder or whatever it is now and i'm like no no i'm just brandon sort of thing and i think that's that i think that's the thing that happens with age um is that you don't have let anything define you but yourself but growing up 100 i think that's the reason i started probably doing fitness more because my confidence levels and self-belief was honestly like I look back and now sheer rock bottom like horrible because I'm like well I lost kayaking um what defines me no one's gonna find me appealing no one's gonna like me because I don't do this anymore um wasn't happy with like the way that I looked all this sort of stuff um and the belief that I could actually achieve anything i just didn't believe i was like am i just going to be working this part-time job for the rest of my life because i failed school as well so confidence is always that big one no matter what you see from the outside oh he's got it together no no we don't

Loïc yeah yeah that's a super good point and you know it makes me reflect on some something that a few of my guests who were Olympic champions in their fields mentioned that sometimes at least a few of them, they even stopped introducing themselves as Olympic champions or medalists to avoid having this tag put on their head like, okay, this guy is whatever sports he's doing and there is nothing else and I'm going to interact with him with this filter. Like all the questions they were getting were around, okay, the medals, the sports the discipline they were doing but as you said you know it's it's not necessarily 100 of what defines them so super interesting to to um to see that this is also what you sort of experienced and and that you successfully you know uh move forward and and try i mean found a way to

Brandon to avoid this i think yeah sorry i'm gonna i think like you read the book relentless yeah yeah so like that was I've only just finished that to be fair and it goes on to talk about very similar things isn't it it's like because when you've spoke to Olympic champions and things like that and when you are an Olympic champion that is it you are the pinnacle of your sport technically you are the best of the best so where do you go from there like what's next and I think what was lovely about that book is that actually it's not so much and it's like anything like we could all desire to be a millionaire or a billionaire but actually the process of becoming a millionaire a billionaire or olympic athlete is what the what is what the desire is that's the fun part that the suffering the learning and things like that when you get given a medal around your neck and some people clap like oh well done you're like you could feel absolutely the most alone you've ever felt in your life still depending on how your mindset is going into that or most of the time most olympic athletes are probably stood up there thinking right i need to get back to training tomorrow yeah that's literally if you actually like they'll have a proud moment um because it's been four to eight years of hard work but after that it's the next day they're back to it because they're like well i need the routine i need the structure i need this this is my life and then i know i've heard loads of olympic stories where they just don't even like they don't care about the medal they just chuck it into the loft and they crack on with it because i'm like well a piece of gold doesn't doesn't do anything for me yeah it makes me think of this concept that you

Loïc probably um know as a as a personal trainer of finite and infinite games you know from uh i think it's from simon synek but he's sometimes recycling a lot of a lot of concepts so i don't know if it's really from him but i discovered it through one of his uh talk uh finite games and uh infinite infinite games, infinite games and infinite games, yeah, which is basically that, you know, like, is the beauty, isn't the beauty in actually the pursue of the goal rather than reaching the goal itself, which is, you know, then what? Yeah, I understand. So, awesome. Well, you mentioned, you know, you talked about this sort of awakening moment you had when you were on this shooting, I don't know, day, and you met all those people and that was sort of the clicking moment for you. I'm just wondering, you know, what happened then? Because when you look backward, you know, it's always easy. You say, okay, yeah, he was at a shooting day. Then he had a, you know, he realized he wanted to do this in his life. And today he's a successful personal trainer. He lives in Dubai. You know, everything seems, you know, super, that it went super smoothly. But I guess there was a start, you know, there was a first action you decided to do. and then probably there were some struggles on the way so i'm curious to know you know how did you kickstart this new leg of your journey i think it's a typical thing it's just

Brandon like you just take action right on whatever it's like we can all plan and we can all um like map out we can get pen and paper but i've got a plan in place i'm like yeah but that's great but it's not going to do anything to you actually just do it um so initially i was like well what do I need to do to I don't know to like become a PT because no one I don't know how you do that right um again it's pretty simple which is a bit sad to get basic qualifications you don't need to do much um a bit like a driving test of course like yeah you can do a driving test but it doesn't mean you can drive like now you've got to go on the road and actually learn sort of thing so obviously from that point I um I just signed up to do my like level three personal training thing which took literally I think it was like dude I think it was like I want to say like six weeks in like every day nine till five Monday to Friday so it's really easy like it was really straightforward and I was just working part-time at like Hollister so I was working part-time there for kind of two years on and off and then ever since then I was like right and then when that finished I started working at a pure gym which was kind of a local local gym and I spent two years there just like doing the typical PT thing talking to people um teaching classes all this sort of stuff doing the 4 a.m shift doing all the way up through 10 p.m the horrible PT hours um and I did that for two years and then I transferred and I moved to London um and that was literally it so it's it just comes down to I'm just like just just gotta start you just gotta start like google it like simplest way how do I and that's literally it like type in how do I become a personal trainer loads of courses pop up find one near you go do it um but yeah that was I think what I find with my life is that I probably should think about things a little bit more than I actually do I'm very much I just listen to my gut and I go for it um the same as moving my life out um to the Middle East which same sort of thing um I was like yeah screw it like what have I got to lose nothing let's go um again probably should have thought about it but it's i think if you listen to your gut and just take action you'll do all right awesome wow is this something you also

Loïc see in your with your clients you know the ones who are really committed to actually achieve results um what would you say is the the key factor of success for them

Brandon would that be that the the ability to step into actions i think it's actually i'm not it's always it's very easy to turn around and be like oh you gotta want it that's very easy to say some people need more guidance some people need more support and clarity and things like that but it all comes down to just putting in the action blocks that's needed and it doesn't have to be rocket science I preach moving one percent forward every day so I'm like right what do you need to do today in order to be a little bit better tomorrow and vice versa just think about one step today could be like, again, like I'm drinking water now. I could be like, make sure you drink two liters of water a day. Guess what? You're a healthier individual right now. And I think that's all it is, is just breaking it down step by step. But a lot of it comes down to like, it's that typical thing. You can't sugarcoat it either. Like it comes down to adhering to a plan. It comes down to executing. It comes down to showing up when you don't want to do it. If it's raining outside, yeah, you've got to go outside and you've got to go for a walk or like you don't want to go to the gym at 6am but like it needs to be done um so let's go and I think the biggest thing is I'm very big on again like you're onto it as well like a mindset approach and it does just come down to like I always ask myself or ask them questions like okay cool so if we have the same conversation in six months time and you're in the same position now how would you feel and i think that's the biggest fear you can put into someone so i'm like so you're nothing's going to change in the next six months of your life really serious simple breakdown and i've actually got um i've started doing it now and i've got a few clients to do it you know the little timers like the egg climbers you flick upside down yep i listened to a really good um another good uh audiobook and sometimes i just flick it over and that's my life disappearing and it's it's a bit deep um but i like it because i'm like and you can just see your time disappearing what you've got left so i'm like okay cool so how are you going to spend your time and sometimes you can just have them anywhere so when you're cooking just flick it over and i've a few i've got a few people to do that and it hits home quite hard so there's loads of little things you can do to like on a day-to-day routine to kind of get produce that mindset or produce the actions that are needed um but at the end of the day it does come down to it again like i said it it's easier saying oh you got to want it but you do have to want it at the same time it's easy to say oh you got to want it but the most important thing is to home in on the why and the goal because i could turn around and be like oh bro like you you getting fitter isn't about you it's about you in six months time it's about you being a better father in six months time It's about you being the athlete that you want to be in six months time, whatever that is. It's not about you now. Stop being selfish now. Think about you in the future. And things like that. So I think that's the biggest thing because going to the gym, eating well, everyone knows how to do it. Generally, every night, we have the internet, Google it. Like, honestly, I'm probably going to give you some of the same advice that you can see on Google, because it works. But actually, why aren't you adhering to the plan? Why don't you eat well? Why don't you go to the gym?

Loïc and that's what we need to suss out yeah start with why again yeah that's super interesting and as you know um i think i think that's something um to me with the the clients i've coached that really made a difference is the direction you know what's the destination as you say it's not about because yeah it makes sense you know if if you want to lose weight i guess you can ask pretty much everyone they will give you a recipe you know it better it less you know drink better drink more water exercise more sleep well and that's it actually the recipe you know everyone knows it but when you look at it we have like thousands and hundreds of thousands of people who every single year are you know reaching out to PT or coaches like you and I asking for you know support because they do not manage to stick to you know that simple recipe so and to me and and i'm pleased that you you mentioned it it's really about the directions that most of the time those people they they stick to the present as you say you know and they don't maybe invest enough time and energy thinking about okay why am i doing this you know what's the direction in which way is it going to help me to reach you know a certain goal or a certain

Brandon destination yeah and a lot of it i was gonna say a lot of it's very it's all simple it's all very simple so it's like i always break it down to like brushing your teeth brushing your teeth is really easy to do and really easy not to do it's two minutes out of your day but actually what will happen if you don't brush your teeth it'll accumulate over time if you brush your teeth every day and you have good teeth it'll accumulate over time and they're out cool you have no teeth you're gonna lose it all whatever it is or you get a very good healthy teeth by just doing a very simple habit every day. And you can do the same. Well, what's the benefit of eating one good meal? Well, there isn't one. But what happens when you eat 60? And what happens when you eat 70 and 80 and 90? The accumulation of everything and the compounding effect is huge. So everyone can take a step back and be like, yeah, you're not going to see results tonight, tomorrow, next week, potentially next month. But if you know what you're doing and you have a clear plan and clarity throughout the way and you know deep down you're ticking off the boxes, you will get there so it's making sure that people like again like i would never if i started out judo why would i look at you you've been a professional for 10 years longer than me and it's pointless for me to compare my chapter one to your chapter 60 i have to read through

Loïc the chapters as well yeah would you say i don't know maybe it's um you know you you sort of hear that everywhere that today we are in, you know, we are generations of, in the instant, you know, everything is like immediate with the, you know, social media, whatever you name it, it's right now, immediately. Would you say that's something that's making, you know, focuses on health and fitness harder for people, for the younger generations,

Brandon because of the influence they have through that yeah i think it's a lot of it we live in a world now where everything looks perfect and almost good looks poor so like if you're doing really good in life it almost feels like you're not getting anywhere and perfect is so easy to portray especially when it's like cool like i can show you my day and i can make it look fucking incredible a dubai view whatever it is nice food whatever it is but then people don't see the other 95% of the day. And I do think it is just that age. I think it's very easy to sit here, but I think kind of like from 20 to 30 years old nowadays, I think maybe a bit older even, like I think they just assume they're entitled, entitlement very much. Like we live in a world now where we can get anything by our phone, all this sort of stuff. And if we talk to our parents, like my mom worked three jobs, raised three kids, worked from 4am till 10pm at night. And people are, oh, I've worked really hard for a week. I'm like, dude, you're joking, right? And that kind of comes down to it. I think that's one good thing when you talk to athletes. It's like all you see them do is hold up a medal, and they're like, oh, man, he's so talented. He's not talented. He's not special. He's just worked for eight years. Eight years. You haven't seen those eight years of hard work. So when people see success and things like that, or whatever success is to the individual, well, I actually turn around and be like, well it's that typical thing the iceberg thing right where you have success underneath the icebergs hard work crying tears all that sort of stuff people don't see that um but then also i think potentially if it is social media you probably need to be unfollowing certain people or following the right people that are very transparent um but it does i think it is it's just we just live in a world where there's nothing bad about it like we would never be having this conversation right now if it wasn't for social media and all this sort of stuff right so it has given me my best friends relationships everything like that in life um but it is i think having a self-aware and awareness to detach from it as well yeah i was about to say especially in your

Loïc field right because uh as a pt i mean you do help people to also of course feel better but also look better uh you know and and i was about to say you know isn't it the paradox of your um of what you're doing because you have to be aware of the reality that it might not look like what we see on social media but on the other side that's also probably for some of your customers if not most of a goal

Brandon you know this physical appearance yeah 100 oh honestly if i compared to myself to the people that i look up to sort of thing i would just be crying every day there's no point like i'll be like I can like you just like it's just it's not even worth it like sometimes you have to be like there's a lot of factors that come into play of course like you have to think about genetics and you have to think about all these sort of things again it comes down to drug protocols and everything like that what these people are doing to their bodies in order to do that and stuff and it's all I say is I've been in very good shape as well I've been abs whatever you want to call it very good shape and it doesn't make you happy it doesn't make you fulfilled so fulfillment and happiness comes down to other areas of your life. Going to the gym is great and things like that. And it is, you just need to home in on, it's about you. It's about your process and about what you want from life. And again, coming back to that original why, like, why do you want to change your life? Is it to run around with your kids? Is it to be able to take your top off and feel more confident or whatever it is? And, but yet that why evolves over time, you achieve that. And then you want more and more and more. So sometimes you need to be like, right, remember the conversation we had six months ago actually you've achieved that goal so why aren't you happy now do you know what I mean so it's like sometimes it's taking a step back and I think it's great that people evolve like that but you've just gotta sometimes backtrack a little bit and like you are doing good like I think I think it's sometimes the best thing I've done in the last few months is just put my head down and just focus on me and keep my circle extremely small one of the best things I've ever done. Super interesting. How would you say, you know,

Loïc you mentioned this image of the iceberg with what people see and what most of the time people don't see, especially in sports. How does your former career as a kayaker helps you today to lend that

Brandon message to your clients? Yeah, I think I'm very relatable. So an easy one to do is like, most people have been to university right or some form of university degree or college or things like that so i'm like okay cool so you went to university for three years to study to be this right and you had to hand in so much paperwork you had to do x y z to get something at the end of it why is your health and fitness any different this is not so i'm like actually instead of thinking i think again we've been sold this kind of like 12 week cookie cutter program get shredded get abs in 12 weeks and i'm like well yeah of course it can work to an extent but not probably for not for 99 of people so let's take a step back and be like so you've been technically abusing your body for a good amount of time potentially five ten years you've been unhealthy you potentially felt lacking confidence in your body so why do you want to turn around and all of a sudden get it in shape in a month's time and then you can relate it to things again like university like I work with a couple of doctors and I sometimes get baffled I'm like dude you've studied for 12 years to be a surgeon and why like why do you think we can achieve this in six months and again like it's kind of that comment I said with time I'm like time is your best friend like people are learning from from I was doing rugby at 11 years old and then kayaking all the way through like I'm 26 now so it's been a long period of time uh like over 10 years like 15 years doing fitness and health and sport so I'm like just because I was a kid like I generally felt all these things and it didn't like I've learned and I failed from 14 years old all the way through so you're just learning from my failures and a lot of time I do that now I'm like I know the outcome so if clients are oh I'm gonna eat this I'm gonna try this I'm like honestly go for it I know what's going to happen it's fine because i've done it and then when they turn around like no it didn't work but it's good it's very good for people to fail like that sort of thing and it's like if you film some exercise and send them to me and the technique's a little bit off i'm like good they're supposed to be off why why are you trying to find this perfect technique and form like if you talk to usain bolt he's always going to think i could have just he doesn't just run and be like this is perfect he's continuously adapting and fine-tuning it and that never stops so there is like again when people hunt for perfect i'm like mate if you can find me the definition of perfect and the perfect setup that's awesome because your perfect is gonna be very different from my perfect exactly yeah and it's all like it's just not real it's just not real

Loïc yeah and so today uh we we started with this you know this idea of the flame burning for kayaking that at some point burn probably a bit less um i really have the feeling that today you have this flame for um personal training so i was wondering you know what what is it that's um um fueling it is it um supporting people seeing where they you know what they can achieve or is it something else

Brandon yeah it's really good do you know what's i think the more that i'm doing it impacting lives is amazing like i i always say to people like if if it's a consultation or whatever that is i can get people in shape i can get people healthy into the best shape of their lives i'm not worried about that um and like again it all comes down to mindset for me because what you're going to achieve mentally over the next kind of year six months whatever it is however long we work together that's going to be more that's going to impact your life more than getting into good shape and i almost i love the mindset thing i love the psychology the self-development side of what training does because training and nutrition is a very simple concept like we said before like actually eating well doing all that sort of stuff very easy but why don't we do it and it comes down to the psychological side of this but honestly i it's going to sound really messed up but this is probably what most potentially athletes say is like generally trying to, I love trying to fail and suffer every day. Like I do, I enjoy like, the reason I like training is because it hurts. And I know if it hurts, it's the good thing to do. I know, again, if like, it sounds a bit harsh, but if like, if my clients are struggling and I'm like, that's good, that's good. Like you should be struggling because it's not easy. And like every day was easy and a breeze, like you wouldn't get anywhere. You have to consider, it doesn't have to be like jumping fully out the comfort zone, but just keep stepping out of it. Just keep trying to like nudge your way out of it all the time. Because I think when you can fall in love with kind of the suffering and the early mornings and the late nights and just the shitty stuff, really like, that's fun. That is fun because that's kind of life. Like 80% is hard work and 20% you're like, this is amazing. again we can relate it back to the olympics four years of hell eight years of hell coming forth last oh i didn't like you see those um stories all the time of olympians like never making like they could do two olympics and just again i've seen it with power lifting where they drop the bar they just drop it and they do it again in the next olympics four years later and then they hold it up on the the next olympics and that's four eight that's 12 years later and it'll be amazing for that split second but the other eight years before that is what he really loved because that splits when he's done it that split second yet emotional tears and it's almost like the relief the suffering's over for a split second and then we start all over again yeah so I think I just enjoy that again like we talk about relentless and I just I enjoy the relentless

Loïc side of it would you would you have a story for us maybe of either yourself or a client that you coached that really for you you know represents this the impact of the mindset

Brandon yeah 100% I can relate to clients a lot of a lot of the clients I work with now want to get into the best shape of their lives and I mean to get into photo shoot shape and every one of them has the same struggles of the like a lot of it is it's again it's very very simple but it's the routines and habits every day they get more and more demanding the deeper you get right so you can always again pull it back to like olympics the closer you get to the olympics the demands get higher and things like that and it's very simple when a deadline's coming up you get you have to push a little bit harder a little bit harder and what they learn in themselves in that time period is phenomenal because they know how to eat they know how to drink they know how to train but what I love is just seeing messages from them and voice notes and things like that and just the consistent like the hunt like I want this I want this every day I'm not sleeping good it's bad night's sleep I'm showing up at 4am I'm getting it done i'm doing it before work i'm doing it before the kids wake up and all that sort of stuff that's what i love and that's what i admire with any individual whatever they go through in life it could be a career it could be anything but if you're passionate about hunting and hunting like you'll get respect from me any day it's all about the hunt yeah 100 100

Loïc awesome wow triggers a lot of thoughts you know and i mean it's funny to see that the different even though we have different backgrounds funny to see you know that we we shared a lot of views actually pretty much everything you said i'm like i fully agree on the approach on development the destination um the one person every single day um by the way i wanted to ask um this concept of the marginal improvement uh wasn't it first uh brought up by uh the british cycling team do you know that because i talked about it with a previous guest but i wasn't sure anymore i think it is i think

Brandon because the english cycling team was really bad right for 50 years like for 50 years and i think they brought in because it was in the book wasn't it like atomic habits right yeah and i don't know who they brought in but they brought in like some team or some psychologists or whatever it was and they did the smallest of things right i think they changed the color of like where their bikes were stored from black to white and they changed like like just their daily routines wake up five minutes earlier and do this and all this sort of stuff and now like the english cycling team are probably one of the best teams on the planet but honestly but less than i thought like a lot less time period it hasn't been that long. It's only been in the last, what, like five years, maybe like not even long, like the last two Olympics. Cause the last one didn't really happen, did it? Or it was delayed. So yeah, it was, I think like the, um,

Loïc yeah,

Brandon that kind of 1% formula and things like that. And the small changes massively, but it does.

Loïc And I get to the small changes over time. That's what gonna, you know, uh, trigger the biggest, um, improvements yeah awesome uh well we are slowly but surely reaching the end uh brandon i was wondering if maybe you know to conclude to conclude you could uh maybe share maybe some tips or your view on for people who would be listening and wondering okay it's great to hear about all of that but you know what do i what do i start with you know what what can help me to really you know trigger those changes i've been dreaming for and what is the first action i should be doing what would be your tips for those people yeah there's obviously a lot of things you could

Brandon talk about but i generally think just to sit on i don't know sit on your sofa and be ask yourself the harsh question of like in like i said to you before like in six months time like where do i want to be and if you don't like the answer or if you're not happy with the answer then what needs to change very simple concept so it's like or if you wake up and you keep waking up not fulfilled not happy things like that just ask yourself like what needs to change in my life very simple and sometimes like no one's gonna ask you those questions or you can just be like am i happy it's either yes or no right and if you don't like the answer then i'm cool right what needs to change in order for you to be happy because a lot of time people know the answers deep down people know because we have that gut feeling i'm a big believer in the gut so i'm like all right what needs to change are you unhappy going to work doing the same job right assess your environment if you've kids and things like that yep of course assess your environment but just quit but just quit because at the end of the day like you can find another job you're clearly very switched on there's lots of jobs in the world now we apparently social media is a job now so there's lots of jobs in the world but don't waste time like just take action on things literally ask yourself this like you could literally pause this podcast and ask yourself a quick question and they're like right what needs to change and every day you wake up you have the opportunity to change your life doesn't have to be big like we said we've literally said nothing needs to be big like could just be like right let's just eat a little bit healthier today let's eat some fruit today let's eat some veg very very simple drink some more water but you've got to take some action because you've got to take responsibility for your own life because no one else is going to do it for

Loïc you. Exactly. So simple yet super powerful questions. Always. Awesome. Well, thanks a lot, Brandon, for everything you've been willing to share with us today. It was fantastic to have your view on PT to learn a bit more about your background as a former high-level athlete. I guess, what can I wish you? All the best in your next endeavors. Fantastic success in the field of PT. And well, maybe one day we'll meet each other in Dubai or UK. I don't know.

Brandon Yeah, we'll get a workout in soon. It'll be fine. Yeah. Let's do that. As long as it's not judo, I'm right. I don't want to get my ass kicked.

Loïc Or we do a first round judo and the second one on a kayak, you know. And then we're even. And then we're just going to do it.

Brandon We're kind of neutral. That's good. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks a lot, Brendan. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.